Leap

The words from a Brian Doyle essay called "Leap" came to me in my dream Monday night, and I awoke very happy, wishing that somebody in particular loved me, and instead of being my normal flippant and crude self I instead felt sincere and hopeful and happy. It did not go unnoticed by one of my co-workers who immediately accused me of being too happy, and it's true that I was somewhat loopy. Here are some excerpts from that essay -

"A couple leaped from the south tower, hand in hand. They reached out for each other and their hands met and they jumped….

Their hands reaching and joining is the most powerful prayer I can imagine, the most eloquent, the most graceful. It is everything that we are capable of against horror and loss and death. It is what makes me believe that we are not craven fools and charlatans to believe in God, to believe that human beings have greatness and holiness within them like seeds that open only under great fires, to believe that some unimaginable essence of who we are persists past the dissolution of what we were, to believe against evil hourly evidence that love is why we are here…..

No one knows who they were: husband and wife, lovers, dear friends, colleagues, strangers thrown together at the window there at the lip of hell. Maybe they didn’t even reach for each other consciously, maybe it was instinctive, a reflex, as they both decided at the same time to take two running steps and jump out the shattered window, but they did reach for each other, and they held on tight, and leaped..."