Rochelle Riley

This Christmas, I am working harder on holiday gifts than ever. This year, I’ve decided not to buy them. This year, I am writing letters, notes of admiration, realization and reflection, for my dearest friends.

The decision really made itself. I just returned from a trip to Dakar, and just didn’t have time to spend in stores trying to decide which thing that my friends already own I should try to replace. I imagined strolling down aisles and through department stores and the very idea gave me a headache.

Which one could use another sweater? Which one might like another pair of earrings that are more my taste than theirs? How many more ties can I buy?

Nope, this time, this year, I am using the gift God gave me to create a unique gift for each of them: notes of encouragement and gratitude, words to let them know how I feel about them, how much I appreciate them being in my life.  If they take them in the right spirit, they won’t think I’m dying and saying goodbye, but will understand how much I love them.

I made three exceptions: my friend, Shelley, who is among the smartest, funniest and most practical people I know. I got her a picture frame. She’s already decided what to put in it. my friend, Phyllis. I had decided before I left that I wanted her to have something tangible that she could show off; and daughter, sister, brother, aunt and cousin, who comprise my nuclear family, the core that is left back in North Carolina. I knew before the plane took off for Senegal that I would bring them something back from there.

Everyone else gets the best of what’s inside of me, what I think of them and feel about them.

I hope they appreciate the words as much as I appreciate them.

I am grateful that, 10 years later, I wake up in bed, in my house, in a free America and my first thought is: “I have to water the dog”- not anything else, anything bad, anything ugly. Minutes later, I remember the heroes . . . and the smoke . . . and the children . . . and the heroes.

It isn’t that I wasn’t prepared for today and hadn’t been reminded that today is today. But my goal is not to treat the anniversary of America’s worst day since World War II, since the assassinations of JFK and King, like a holiday. Unlike Christmas, that has its own smell and feel from moments before you wake, I didn’t want this to become a day devoted to sadness and memories of death.

I wanted to wake today, oblivious to terrorists and fully embracing the life I can have only in America. I wanted today to be about living harder than ever, with more purpose, because I am living for some who aren’t here.

When recalling 9/11, as my newspaper asked me to do, my memory was instant – the children, those who watched strangers and those who watched their parents die. (Read my column at freep.com/rochelleriley.)

But to really recall the first moments of 9/11 I had to call my daughter. As always she was my first thought, and her memory was stunningly clear. She recalled it in that breathless get-it-all-out-at-once way that I used to write:

“We were in art class and our art teacher, Ms. Rubel got pulled into the hallway by the principal and we didn’t know what was going on, but we thought it was weird that we were allowed to still talk in class. They came back, and and she said we weren’t going to have class today and they turned on the TV, and we were all sitting there watching it and right then, the second plane hit the second tower and at that point, I remember we were watching, but didn’t understand. From what I remember, a newscaster said a second plane just hit the World Trade Center, and they showed a picture of the plane hitting, and they were talking about how we might be under terrorist attack. The teachers wer all sitting on art stools and it went from one’ teacher in the room to five or six teachers. We didn’t know what to do. Then Gabrielle started crying and everyone else started crying and said they wanted to go call their moms and dads. They took people in groups of three to call. I said, “Mom there’s something going on with some airplanes. And you said, ‘Did they tell you about it?’ And you came and got me. (My daughter, when she was even younger, thought I had the ability to fly over cars when I needed to arrive in an emergency).. . We went back to the newsroom. I was sitting there watching it. . . You turned to something else for me to watch, and I had lots of food and pen and paper so I could draw. I wasn’t that scared because I didn’t understand. The only time I was scared was at school when someone said they were coming there next. You explained it to me. We called Grampa to see where he was, and you told me he hadn’t gone into the city.”

And there it was. The only connection we might have had, that we knew of, was not made. So it, like the Space Shuttle Challenger, became a horrible tragedy that we watched from afar. Moved, sad, tearful, stunned, we lived with for days with no personal connection.

Until they talked about the fire companies that ran in when others ran out – and didn’t come back.

We know firefighters.

We know police officers.

We know soldiers.

And from that moment, the tragedy became more than a horror we watched from a distance on TV. It became personal. It became about the people whose faces we saw but didn’t recognize that we knew belonged to someone.

I didn’t show my daughter, but I cried a little every day. So as we’ve done every anniversary of the tragedy, I will find something to do today to help someone else, something in honor of the heroes.

The martyrs. The firefighters. The ones who gave their lives to make us pay attention to our safety, our power, our place in the world. We must never forget them.

Thank God for them, every one. Ten years later, thank God.

I saw a little girl get married Saturday.

She was a 13-year-old babysitter who took my 3-year-old for long walks while I worked.

Then she was a 16-year-old high school student making decisions about her life.

Then she was a 19-year=-old college student – smart, funny, totally sure of her self. And then one night, she decided to go across the street to get something to drink. It was just a study break.

It happened in seconds. She never saw the police car that struck her. The car was involved in a high-speed chase that wasn’t allowed on the streets of Atlanta. The officer was driving in excess of 60 miles an hour.

It was the same night that Niki Taylor, the model and celebrity, was involved in a car accident. Niki Taylor’s serious injuries made all the magazines and newspapers. Carmen barely made it to the hospital.

She would be get better over two years, get to walk again again over five years.

And last Saturday, she walked down the aisle in a red & white ceremony that she planned herself.

She married a soldier. His fellow soldiers came in uniform. Two of them preceded her into the glorious atrium of a Dallas County office building that looked like a dream.

She danced the first dance with her husband beside a serene pool.

She and he cut a large multi-tiered red cake with white and gold decorations.

For three hours, through a glorious and short ceremony and a catered dinner, She was a testament to faith, love and the fact that only God knows.

And God knows we were happy to be there for that moment at a wedding that brought back memories, both bad and good.

But the good ones drowned out the bad ones.

And we never have to think about the accident again – until the next milestone, and we offer thanks again for how far she has come.

I love it when an old man calls me “baby.”

I know that when it happens, the man means no harm, no offense, that he is remembering, that he is, for just a moment, living another time when he was a mack daddy and he called all the girls “baby.” He might have, for a moment, been thinking of his daughters or granddaughters and let me have their term of endearment for a moment.

The man, whenever and wherever he is, could have been my grandfather, who called me that almost every day. My grandfather was a gruff, hard-working man who raised two families and never complained. He called me baby and he called every boy and man in our town “Charlie.”

I was as amazed that he did it as I was that everyone let him. No matter who he saw, he’d cry out, “Hey, Charlie!” And they’d always say, “Hey!” – whether it was Donald or Nathan or Bridgers or Derek or Tony or Nino or Winston.

The man on the scooter looked nothing like my grandfather, save skin like ebony and a wonderful smile.

I was walking, Desi, The Wonder Dog, when I saw the old man this evening. He was on a scooter with a basket in front and his cane in back. He was bowed over his lap. My heart stopped. Had he died while out for a ride? I called over, “Sir, are you all right?”

Nothing.

I called louder, “Sir, is everything OK?”

And he stirred as if from sleep, because that is what it was. He raised his head, still looking forward, never at me, and raised his thumb in the universal sign of “Everything’s all right.”

I smiled and continued our walk. But before I got to the corner, the old man was flying past, doing at least 5 miles per hour. He was totally awake, vibrant, the lost moment gone. He turned and waved, “Hey baby, how ya doing?”

“Fantastic, sir!”

And like that, he had turned the corner and headed down the street. I am a writer, not a photographer. By the time I realized that I should get a photo of him and fumbled with my Iphone to take it, he was gone.

It was the third time I’d been called baby by an old man this week, and every time, I thought of my grandfather. Those “baby’s” were gifts, and I didn’t mind at all.

She was trying to help.

Rachel Beckwith decided last spring that her friends should skip the birthday presents and instead help her raise money to provide clean water to African villages. She was trying to raise only $300.

On the page, she wrote this message: “I found out that millions of people don’t live to see their 5th birthday. And why? Because they didn’t have access to clean, safe water so I’m celebrating my birthday like never before. I’m asking from everyone I know to donate to my campaign instead of gifts for my birthday. Every penny of the money raised will go directly to fund freshwater projects in developing nations.”

By the time she turned nine on June 12, she had raised $220. She closed her page.

Rachel didn’t live to see her tenth birthday.

She was killed last week in a 13-car pile-up not far from Seattle. The pastor at her church, Eastlake Community Church, reopened her page. Rev. Ryan Meeks gave Rachel a second chance at her goal.

By Thursday morning, she had raised $518,916 – and counting.

From tragedy, miracles rise like phoenix from ashes.

Her heartfelt effort keeps Rachel alive for her community and for her nation. That moment when she decided to put passion to action meant she would continue to make a difference for people she ever met. Her generosity of spirit should inspire us all.

When the pastor takes the money to whatever country Rachel had in mind, I hope the TV cameras go with him. Or maybe he can call the folks at www.water.org, the charity that actor Matt Damon supports, and they can make the trip for him – and for Rachel.

We’ll be watching – and remembering a little girl whose heart was as big as the world and whose passion could inspire a generation.

Thank you, Rachel.

To contribute to Rachel’s medical bills and her cause to bring water to an African village, visit http://mycharitywater.org/p/campaign?campaign_id=16396.