Editor’s note: This column originially appeared on the front page of The Packer’s Sept. 17, 2001 issue, following the events of Sept. 11.
Someone told you to find a television, and you stared in disbelief.
You were shocked, bewildered. You stood in terrible awe. A gaping hole, billowing smoke, chaos.
Then you saw the second one hit, and you knew. You saw the heart of darkness rip through a brilliant new morning. A sour, sorrowful spot grew at the center of your gut like cancer, and the tears soon came. You screamed in anger.
You discovered within yourself pure hatred, and it was a truth as cold as a razor’s edge. A truth that frightened you with its enormity. A truth that will linger, forever.
Suddenly, nothing else mattered. You pushed your work away because it seemed frivolous. You shook your head. You asked questions that won’t ever be answered. You noticed your hands, weak and tremulous.
You wanted to do something, but you screamed again because you felt powerless.
The victims. Who did you know? Were they all right? Most, perhaps all, were strangers. Even still, the grief gripped you like never before. They were Americans, and this had never happened. You whispered a prayer. Your hands still trembled.
Packages and purchase orders were stripped meaningless like old bones. You wondered why you haggled yesterday over a quarter a box. You told yourself nothing counts now but the price of freedom. Nothing counts now. Nothing.
There was no purpose in profits, in fresh produce. And yet you were filled with purpose. It raged in red, white and blue.
You picked up the telephone and reorganized your desktop. The work was still pointless. You were drawn back to the televised images. You lost your breath when smoke rose from another city, from a granite building with five sides to it. You wanted to hug your wife, your child. You wanted to do something that mattered. You screamed. You trembled.
You looked into another’s eyes, and you couldn’t help yourself. Your voice caught.
Later, somewhere in the void that appeared to stretch on forever, you realized this: Your work does matter. In the end, it is all that honors a life. It honors the thousands who perished beneath the rubble of evil.
You realized the essentialness of your industry. Because on this day, a colleague stands in a field. He stoops to where seed meets the earth, and his nurturing hand brings forth the stuff of life.
Tracy Rosselle was The Packer’s Eastern editor from 1996 to 2003, and served as executive director of the National Watermelon Association from 2003-04.
