September, the ninth month of the calendar year seems to be the one most conflicted by extreme happiness and the opposite emotion.
For parents the month conjures relief, joy and a return to the kind of routine abandoned by summer vacation.
Yet their student/off-springs must set aside freedom from later bedtime curfews, pools and the playground to face a future of homework, classroom discipline and probably classmates they may not want to see.
At the start of the month, Brooklyn’s Labor Day Parade heaps happiness on Caribbean nationals yearning to display cultural pride but the very next day revelers must face the realities of back to school responsibilities.
Perhaps, the most painful day of the year for most New Yorkers recalls Sept. 11, 2001 when the Twin Towers collapsed.
It was a Primary election day and because of the coincidence of this year’s anniversary, this year’s Democratic exercise was moved two days later.
The entire country grieves each year’s commemoration.
Yet in Ethiopia, the date marks joy, jubilation and a new year.
Their calendar — seven years behind the Gregorian one ascribed here — begins each Sept. 11 with celebrations, hopes and aspirations contrasting the doom felt throughout the USA.
In Jamaica, the Sept. 11, 1987 death of reggae superstar Peter Tosh is annually recalled with solemnity and grief.
This year, radio stations memorialized the musician with tributes and appropriate music.
The month also records Hurricane Gilbert, one of the costliest and worst of the 1988 season to hit the island/nation on Sept. 12.
Sept. 11, 2012 added another disaster in U.S. history with the assassination of 52-year-old, J. Christopher Stevens, U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three more Americans.
They were killed in Benghaza, Libya, reportedly in retribution of a YouTube distributed movie “Innocence of Muslims” that allegedly mocks their spiritual leader, the prophet Muhammad.
On any given date, religion is serious business throughout the world.
Rosh Hashanah signals the Jewish New Year on Sept. 17 – 18.
And, Sept. 26 this year, ushers in Yom Kippur, the holiest religious day for the Jewish people.
It is a period for atonement.
Regardless of geography, there is no indifference to September, good and bad seems to plague this month.
It has not been a month to forget, Remember September.
