We donated blood that day ten years ago. At least, we tried to.
This was in the late afternoon, around five or six pm. This was after my wife and I had met up at the entrance to the Queensborough Bridge at 59th street. It was after her freak out upon watching the second tower fall into dust, after my freak out upon hearing that the towers had in fact fallen down since her place of work was only a few blocks away.
This was after we walked across the bridge to Queens Plaza, where a horde of people fleeing Manhattan were allowed into the subway for free. We took the G train to 63rd Drive and walked home, to our apartment. We were safe. We were fine. We were good.
Then we tuned the television on, and watched the news and we stopped being fine. We were struck with the urgent need to do something and in the big picture, librarians aren't generally thought of as first responders. We figured we'd donate blood at Elmhurst Hospital which was the nearest blood center. We gathered my sister and her room-mate, Gene, and we left to be useful.
Sometimes sharing the simplest of things, like blood, or platelets is the most productive use of your time.
So if you really give half a hump about your country or the people who live in it, then here's an idea: instead of the bullshit politics or trading one-up stories with your buddies about who was the bigger hero on that day--how about you save a life and head to the closest blood center and bleed into a bag for half an hour. You will do more to help your fellow Americans than invading all the Muslim countries in the world. Trust me on that.
Sadly, we did not actually donate blood that afternoon. We did get to the hospital, and we did fill out the forms and get tested. My form was rejected because I'd recently gotten a new tattoo. My sister was rejected for anemia. Gene had a cold, so he got sent home. My wife passed the paperwork and the blood test, but her rolling veins made a donation impractical. Four attempts to do good and four failures.
Life is like that sometimes.
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