By Simon Wright – Follow
me on Twitter @Siwri88
As we all go
through aspects of our lives, we will experience momentous occasions. These
events can vary from the happy moments of marriage, having children, job
promotions and graduation to the more difficult memories of family tragedy,
health concerns, loss of working income and missing out on romance.
However, does
time heal everything thrown at individuals? Using a couple of my recollections
and a moment where the whole world changed irreversibly, I examine whether it
is possible to move on from challenging and extremely fraught circumstances.
The healer of time
If the title
of this piece is the question posed towards myself, I would say that most tough
parts of life can be healed. This can be through various methods – from hard
work and identifying where it went wrong to a few damming self-assessments.
One of those
moments was a spell of tricky results in exams. Throughout my education
history, I wouldn’t say I was a budding Mastermind champion of the future, but
I always put the work in and did my best, even when the odds were against me of
achieving great results.
In 2005, I
got a reality check though with a set of disastrous GCSE results. I had been
predicted to get eight A-C grades seven months earlier, without Double Science
which was a lost cause from an early stage. I ended up well below that mark on the day of the results itself.
That was a
really tough moment, seeing my fellow friends celebrate with a mixture of
delight and relief and there I was, in the middle of the secondary school hall
I attended, looking devastated and basically in the middle of a blur. It was a
scenario I had never imagined. One thing I remember thinking was ‘How do I come
back from this?’
I did though.
I accepted that I hadn’t worked hard enough and raised my game. I got into
sixth form, followed by college and then University. Seven years later, I was
leaving Uni with a 2:1 final grade in my specialist subject. Time was a great
healer in this experience.
Not so when
it comes to losing people special in your life though. Friends come and go, colleagues
can become a regular source of contact and then gradually fade away when you
move on. It happens, as much as we dislike it. However, when it comes to saying
goodbye for the last time, the healing process sometimes can’t be fixed.
In my case, I
have had to deal with this on a few occasions and simply, time doesn’t heal
whether it is one, five or fifty years after the event occurred. Sure, you must
try to move on and you have to in a way but those who depart close to us can never
be replaced. In these moments, you must try to remember the happy moments, the
good experiences that brought you together. It is the only way possible to at
least deal with the grief.
Irreversible change
Sometimes,
time simply can’t heal and for one country and even the world, dates get
transfixed where change happens and it is irreversible, it will never be
forgotten.
Today
(Thursday) marks the 13th anniversary of one of the world’s blackest
days. The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th
2001 left a country in mourning, a world in deep shock and for the people
directly affected, in a state of total remorse.
Thousands of
people lost their lives that day, whether that was on the hijacked planes, or
in the towers of the World Trade Centre in New York – both collapsing after
they were deliberately targeted and crashed into by international terrorists.
The planet was beginning to learn of the serious affect terrorism was about to
play over the next 13 years.
For many
people caught up in the atrocity, they were totally innocent. It is almost
impossible to imagine what many were doing that morning when they woke up in
America, with no knowledge whatsoever of the fate that was to befall them.
It was an
attack that was witnessed by millions across the world on television. It was a
time where the kings of the internet now, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were
just an idea in the fantasies of the creators. It was 24-hour news channels
that brought us the shocking pictures into our living rooms and bedrooms. It
was a country under attack and at the heart of it, personal tragedy (memorial pictured below) wherever
you went.
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| The 9/11 memorial - on the sight where the Twin Towers used to stand |
If you were
old enough, then we all remember what we were doing that day, wherever you
were. The first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Centre just before
2pm UK time on that late summer’s Tuesday afternoon. At that time, I was into
my second week of secondary school, in a maths class, being taught something
about fractions or equations by a teacher who had major language limitations
with his spoken use of English.
13 years on
and that pain will always be there for the families and friends who lost loved
ones on 9/11. Time simply doesn’t heal in this instance. That day, our lives
changed. The world changed forever. Today, there should be a time to remember
the many thousands who perished in America, but also those caught up in
similar disgusting acts in the coming years in Bali, Madrid, Istanbul and of
course, London in 2005.
Today, the
thoughts with many in the world should be with the families who lost their
closest and dearest on 9/11.
So does time heal pain?
Ultimately,
time can heal the element of pain but it also won’t, no matter what happens.
I think it
just depends on the actual scenario that takes place. Happiness can be easily
found with someone else if a relationship breaks up, but that might not always
happen. Some elements are easy to fix as time moves on but it is impossible in
other situations.
It might
sound inconclusive, but that is the reality of it all. As time passes, pain can
be healed and replaced with joy, but sometimes, it will leave an empty void
that simply can’t be filled.
