In Memoriam, Mukul Agarwala, on the Anniversary of 9/11
This was written shortly after the terrorist attacks in 2001.
The picture on CNN was vaguely familiar, I guess, older, thicker, an adult version of someone I knew once, listed among the missing with thousands of others.
The name was what I remembered, connected to longtime memories, eroded with time, vague like that face on the computer screen.
There was the joke and the smile, something witty in my yearbook, that’s what I remember, the easy way we got along, but no images, nothing concrete beyond the hazy sense of knowledge, the house on Karen Street, the smell of curry permeating.
Your second day on the 94th floor, jet crash, terror attack, the towers came down, bodies lost, some vaporized, thick smoke, extreme heat, so much death.
I talked with your mother, talked with your father, listened to the heavy sighs and sobs, their grief hanging like an aging sunflower, its heavy head too much for its shriveling staff, bending it beyond its breaking point.
I went to synagogue for Rosh Hashana for the first time in nearly two decades, to be a part of a tradition, to remind myself of the temporary nature of our lives here and the vastness of the universe. And I needed to pray — for the hundreds confirmed dead, for the thousands more still missing, for the lost sense of security and safety, for peace, for the hope that the terrible events of Sept. 11 will not breed more bloodshed and violence.
I received an e-mail from someone I knew in high school, someone I hadn’t seen in 20 years or more, someone on the periphery of my life, lost long ago as we cut loose from the past. He’d heard of your disappearance like I had, struck by the photo, by the resemblance to a grainy memory saved in black and white with the others, one among many in a yearbook tucked away somewhere.
It took me a while to find my yearbook, packed in a trunk loaded down with odd mementos and debris of time past, loaded with rusted punk rock buttons, old greeting cards, a denim jacket signed by all of Annie’s friends in Brooklyn.
I e-mailed Andy, hadn’t heard from him in years, old friend, a best friend, lost friend, we grew apart like so many others from that time, wanting to reconnect, knowing that I missed that chance with you.
I’d thought of you over the years, decades now, wondered what you’d made of your life, occasional fleeting thoughts tied to a time past, another life really, thinking of all those people who litter the imagination, the memory, old friends and classmates, teammates and such, the random faces returning periodically like snippets of songs.
We leave too many things unsaid in this life, that’s what I’ve learned, leave too many things for the next day, too often waiting for the right moment, any moment, too content to let events control our lives, until the time passes, old friend, and there is no time left to talk and far too much left to say.
26/28:ix:01