Transcending the evil that men do
IT WAS A PERFECT September morning. The crisp blue sky and a rising sun gently awakened me. My husband began to stir. A deep sense of contentment wrapped me as I emerged from my sleep. I basked in the delight of bonus time, those few moments before the alarm commands the day. Everything seemed right with the world. I lay totally unsuspecting of the events that would unfold in the day ahead and the years to follow. It was a Tuesday, the 11th of September, 2001.
The alarm went off. Jim hit the snooze button, while I jumped up. The household tumbled into the familiar daily routines of a regular work-school week. I had to feed the dog and get everyone moving before heading off to teach my fifth grade class. My son, 17, awoke early to say goodbye to his dad before getting ready for school. My husband, a chief financial officer, was headed to Los Angeles on United 175 to make a presentation to investors. My 19-year-old daughter still lay sleeping in her college dorm room.
My husband and I met at 18 as college freshmen. We were inseparable, or so we believed. We married at 22 and were days away from celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. But Zacarious Moussaoui and fellow Al Qaeda terrorists had plans, plans that destroyed my family and the life I had.
There is no way I can begin to explain the full impact that the attacks had on me. The four and one-half years since 9/11 have been filled with immense pain and suffering. They have been filled with the loss of hope and faith. I have relived the horror of his final flight as it was diverted from Los Angeles to Lower Manhattan well over a thousand times. I continually question, ''Why didn't the airlines stop the terrorists from boarding the planes? Why did they not prevent them from carrying out their carnage?"
There are no words that can convey the enormity of the terrorist acts. How does one begin to measure personal loss, what my family has missed in the past four and one-half years, and what we will miss in the years to come.
My children have had to make their passage from teens to young adults without their dad. He will not be here to celebrate their joyous moments, to soften their heartaches, or counsel them in their journeys.
Four and one-half years later I am still in therapy. I was unable to continue in my job. I had to leave my home. I could not live there; I could not sell it. The God of my childhood died on September 11. He couldn't be all powerful as I had believed. Otherwise he would have done something. Today, I continue to seek the support of good priests to heal the damaged relationship with the God I so loved, to regain a deep and an abiding faith.
Does Zacarious Moussaoui deserve the death penalty? Absolutely. He participated in a heinous, premeditated plot to use aircraft as weapons to bring destruction to America. Arrested on visa violations, he was not given the opportunity to carry out his plan, but on September 11, 2001, at 9:03 a.m. his brothers in terrorism destroyed the family I had.
But there is a more important question: Should Moussaoui receive the death penalty? Absolutely not. Although Moussaoui deserves to die, the people of the United States should not impose the death penalty upon him. My concern is not so much with Moussaoui. My concern is with the 9/11 survivors, the families and friends of the victims, and the people of our nation.
It is a human response to be enraged against those who plotted to take the lives of so many innocent victims. To strike back is an instinctual human reaction toward such an outrageous violation against mankind. Yet to impose the death penalty diminishes our own humanity. Do we want to characterize ourselves as a nation committed to pure vengeance with nothing more to be gained? For we surely cannot think that imposing the death penalty will act as a deterrent against other terrorists. Cloaked in the rationalization of carrying forth the will of God, the terrorists let their fear and hatred consume their last ounce of humanity. Let us not follow in their footsteps.
Let us instead distance ourselves from the evil wrapped in their warped behavior. Let us maintain a strand of humanity that will bond us to the value of life. Let us define ourselves as principled people not acting out of fear and hatred, but a people who under the most challenging of circumstances can transcend evil and prevail with reason and justice. Let us strive to have love for one another.
Elizabeth Hayden resides in Boston. 
