Questions

My grandmother lived two doors away when I was seven. I loved to visit and did so often. One afternoon, on her way to town, my mother pulled up in front of Nana’s mailbox. “Get in,” she shouted.

I walked to the passenger side of the car. “Wait, I forgot something.” I ran back to the stoop. My retrieval only delayed us a few seconds. Then I got in the car and we took off toward town.

My mother was not happy with me. Why couldn’t I have been ready when she wanted to go? Why did I have to go back and get… whatever it was I’d left on the stoop? I always made her late, she said. My mother was in full tirade when we reached Five Corners. We turned left on Hawkins Avenue, then a few blocks later took Ronkonkoma Avenue when it branched off to the right. In the triangular-shaped piece of land created where the road forked was a small Veteran’s Park. My Brownie troop laid a wreath there every Memorial Day. I smiled, remembering how much I enjoyed being part of that ceremony with all those people in uniform who took care of us.

When we reached the intersection with Portion Road, we stopped for the traffic light. Ours was the second car in line. Impatient to get wherever we were going, my mother complained. “It’s your fault. If only you had been ready on time.”

When the light changed, the car ahead of us proceeded into the intersection. A vehicle running through the red light impacted it on the driver’s side, crushing the woman at the wheel.

Years later, I attended a Yankee game in New York City during Fleet Week. A woman walked up to me and pointed to the name tag on my summer white uniform.

“Are you from the ship made with the steel from the twin towers?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m the chaplain.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she took off the copper memorial bracelet she’d been wearing. She placed it on my wrist. “Please wear this when the ship is commissioned. It would mean a lot to me to know he is on that ship.”

I asked her about the person whose name was engraved in the metal. “My partner,” she said. “An EMT. We were working together at the towers on 9/11. I went to the right, and he went to the left as the building collapsed. I never saw him again.”

The question is begged by the reality. How is the future determined? Is it by the fickle finger of fate? The playing out of a divine scenario or the laws of physics? Is it by an object left on the stoop, a few seconds of time, or the decision to turn one way and not the other? And how is our path directed? By the laying of a wreath, a difficult mother, a commitment to serve, or the need to ask these questions and seek an answer? How does it all come together? So many questions; not enough answers.

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