A necklace of leaves // Spirits in the trees

One of the greatest friends I will ever have in my entire life and I. Everything smiles and dreams and magical beginnings to a shared apartment so very soon as we entered University.

The back side of the photograph contains far more words than it does numbers. Just hours later would be the devastating phone call that would send a great love, a great hero into oblivion and cloud my newly free and open eyes. Just days later it seemed like what innocence remained with me was shattered along with everyone else. It is remarkable how the moments have woven into memory. Where I set the camera to take this photograph. How I remember the feel of the couch. How I remember chasing the moon down the freeway that night and the horrible feeling of losing her forever to the unknown realm of 'moving on'. The Tuesday morning seminar class and walking on a crystal Detroit morning back to the parking garage, only faintly overhearing that classes had been cancelled because of some sort of bomb threat. Driving the freeway unaware and listening to Dido and signing onto AOL and seeing the image, getting a call from Tom just as my television began to focus. Every channel. Everywhere.

The uplifting moments following such tragedy and madness were found in seeing individual people taking the time to actually stop and give. Give time, blood, food, even just a smile. Walking the campus as the snow and the fires of the winter slowly dissolved, these small moments seemed to glow ever brighter. My belief in the human spirit, the hope that those living in poverty and fear will someday walk their streets free of the tyranny that breeds such feelings of contempt and anger. Maybe one day we can say that we are Christians and Muslims and Jews, but we are human beings first.

Bless those who passed 9/11/2001
Bless those who dream of something that is beautiful but never reach it on this Earth