Rochelle Riley

STEVE JOBS knew he was approaching the end of a path. The light wasn’t dimming, but the road was running out.
In 2005, he gave a commencement speech at Stanford University, where he was vitally open about his cancer: “This was the closest I’ve been to facing death … and yet death is the destination we all share.”

Four years later, Jobs received a liver that he said had belonged to “a mid-20s person who died in a car crash and was generous enough to donate their organs.” Last summer, he stepped down, six years after telling those Stanford students to “have the courage to follow your heart and intuition; they somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

He followed his heart and intuition, and we are the better for it. You can read my tribute to him at www.freep.com/rochelleriley.

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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.”

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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.

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So I figure I’d be a 21st Century warrior and buy new appliances on the Internet. It’s not like you have to physically study the inside of an oven or actually run the dishwasher. You can look at two-dimensional images and read every bit of fine print to learn all you need to know.

It’s not like you need a salesperson anymore, right?

Wrong.

I visited sears.com, and within 10 minutes, I found a new dishwasher and refrigerator. I paid, scheduled a delivery date and went back to work. The entire shopping trip lasted 15 minutes.

Two days later, a very nice deliveryman/installer named Kurt showed up – with the wrong dishwasher. I had ordered shiny black. It was stainless steel. I had paid for an installation kit (one of those tools not included additional accessories). It wasn’t on his work form.

While we waited on hold for someone at Sears to explain it to us, he replaced a valve on my kitchen pipes that has made life easier. Oh, and he fixed my shower.

Then he took the dishwasher back with a promise to return in a few days. My old dishwasher sat in the garage. The sink had dishes in it because I walked past them for two days, vowing never to return to a task I had not done in 10 years.

An hour later, the refrigerator arrived! Two Sears visits in one day. I knew this one would work. One of of two would be better than nothing, right?

Wrong.

They delivered the wrong refrigerator.

Now, Kurt, the very nice dishwasher installer (Did I mention he’s a plumber?) had given me something before he left: It was the phone number of a salesman named Dave Kallens in appliances at Sears. Call him if you need him, Kurt had said.

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Is it wrong to say that I haven’t seen the new Harry Potter films “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Parts I and II?”

I know why I haven’t seen it. My daughter has outgrown him. Yes, I was one of those parents standing in line with a child too young to be reading a book so dark, buying a book so dark and then watching her read it all night.

Publishing phenomenon or not, the entire set of Harry Potter books sits within three feet of me in my library (save “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which I can’t seem to find anywhere), and I have yet to read any of them.

But I did see the films – glorious, nicely done fantasies – at least the first four.

Until I see “Order of the Phoenix,” I can’t head for the “Deathly Hallows.” But I don’t know whether I want to. The Harry Potter I knew was young and not in danger so much all the time. The older Harry Potter facing Ralph Fiennes in a body condom, seems to be facing hell.

I’m sure I’ll decide soon. I do so want to see the end of a 10-year journey for myself.

But more important, I plan to read the books and study the films and think about my own contribution to literature and cinema. What I want more than watching someone else’s story is creating one of my own. I want to create and then make a film about a character who will leave an indelible mark on those who meet her. I want to conjure up someone who – forever after – will need no introduction other than her name: Ferris Bueller, Forrest Gump, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Rocky Balboa – or Harry Potter.

Except, she’ll be a girl. Bolder than Annie Hall. Happier than Buffy. More serious than Holly Golightly. Less serious than Ripley in all her Alien forms.

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