"The Mosque" Opinion of a Survivor

by Goldie/M

First let me say that it was an honor for "M" to agree to discuss our debate and share her thoughts about the blog. M (as she will be referred to) told me that she thought the writer of the blog (DeeDee) did a terrific job of expressing her thoughts and the she was quite taken with her style and the way she relayed them.

M told me that she considers herself a survivor of 9/11. Not from the actual physical attacks, but of the emotional attack. The following is from M as told to me. I have done my best to quote accurately and I hope I have done so. M is a soft-spoken woman, but with a fierce personality and opinions. She asked me not to use her real name because of her children. She tries to live a quiet, normal life and she and her children honor 9/11, but she does her best not to make it the focus of their lives. She has given interviews in the past, and invariably someone will try to contact her children and ask them questions as well.
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"From the moment it became a realization that my world had just come to a crashing halt, I blamed God." The God I knew and was raised with, the God my Husband was raised with, and the God my children were being raised with. How could MY GOD allow this to happen? A Catholic Church stands across the street from where my husband worked. Shouldn’t God have been there to protect him and all the others who perished that day? Didn’t we go to Mass, and try to live by the laws of church? Allah had attacked and God had let it happen.

The first year after the attack, I was in a fog. Many family members took turns to come stay and helped with the kids. Had they not, I don’t know that I would have lived. I had become so full of misery, hate, and fear that I couldn’t function rationally. I threw my Rosary and God out.

I could not get into a cab if there was a Middle-Eastern man driving. I backed away and took another route if I was walking and someone who "looked" like they were "Muslim" came my way. I literally was shaking during a recital when my daughter was standing next to a child of Middle Eastern decent. An innocent child! I had let fear and irrational behaviors take over. It was at that point which I knew I had to pull myself together and get on with living, for myself, my children and for ‘Jeff.’

It took me a long time to realize that my God and everyone else’s God didn’t make this happen. Allah had nothing to do with the terrorists; Allah was nothing more than a pawn in the mass murder of so many. Jeff’s death was the most painful thing I had to go through in life. Never getting to say goodbye, never finding his body, having to tell my children and try to explain when I did not have any answers. Two of my children don’t remember him- only from pictures and video’s because they were so young.

Over time, with much therapy, support groups and my church-yes, the same one I so easily blamed, I see things a different way. I see that it was the extremists using the name of their God in vain to shine light on themselves. The cowards who physically killed all those innocent people also caused much pain for the innocent Muslim people who had nothing to do with the terror. Except to worship in a faith that was soiled by terrorists, and share an ethnic heritage, they could not be farther apart in worlds.

So, my not so simple answer is this: YES in capital letters, the Mosque, which is also a community center, should be built. I believe all the debate over this has been perpetrated by the Media and politicians weighing in their personal beliefs. The politicians, and yes the President, should only be commenting on the legality of it. If the permits are in order for zoning, there is a constitutional right. We as a nation, we can not take away the very rights that make this country what it is-and what the terrorists tried to take away from us. We must unite, not push others away.

The terrorists will not use this Mosque. The people who will use this facility are Americans, just like you and me. They did not ask for the hand that was dealt them. Many of whom were born here in this country; some are second and third generation. Do we remember the Japanese camps after Pearl Harbor? The segregation and the way we treated citizens of our own country? We cannot allow that to happen again. We all came to this country through forefathers from a foreign land. We can never forget that.

The best way to honor those who died that day is to show the `terrorist world` that they did not bring down our country, or tear our beliefs of freedom and justice apart. We have to be strong, and stand one united.