Right now I am living at our lighthouse in Scotland writing a book and doing a BBC documentary. Everyone is asking me how did I find out about the terrorist attack and how am I coping. The first question is easy to answer. Returning home from a day in Lerwick I went to check my email and there was list of maybe eight news alerts from CNN. As I opened up one email after another I thought it was some kind of 'spam' or gigantic joke. Just to make sure I turned on the TV to check. As the whole world now knows it was no hoax. How I wish it had been.

Click on picture to enlarge Photograph Source Unknown

My first reaction like many others was disbelief and absolute panic. I rushed for the telephone and placed a call to my husband in the US. At first the phone rang busy, then I started to get messages that all routes were engaged and finally the most frightening message, 'Your telephone call can not be completed.' I sat down on the floor and sobbed as I continued to monitor the events on the television. Most of the rest of the day I spent crying and placing one phone call after another. Deciding the phone situation was hopeless I sent an email to my husband telling where I could be reached and went to a neighbours so I would not be alone. Dean and I finally reached each other five hours later.

The second question - 'How am I surviving so far away from home?' is not so easy to answer. Like everyone else I have gone through many stages. My first and probably still most difficult issue was an obsession to get closer to my family. I wanted to go home. It just so happened my husband was due to fly to Shetland the weekend after the attack so at least I was not going to be separated from all of my family. As it turned out his plane was cancelled. It was during the time the planes were not running that I suffered the biggest depression and desire to go home. Just the fact that I could not go was a shattering feeling. A quote from the movie, Dr. Zhivago, kept echoing in my mind. That quote is 'This is a terrible time to be alive.'

Knowing that it would do me or anyone else any good to dwell on my futile desire to go home I took the tact staying busy was the best action. So I occupied my days in all the things that make up my life at the lighthouse. I wrote scores of pages, fished for hours, walked for miles and cooked many new dishes. Little by little it began to work except when I stopped and watched television the unhappiness and depression would return. I was constantly drawn toward the television but knowing it was detrimental for me to watch it too much, I kept it off most of the time and relied on my email news bulletins for anything new.

As the days have dragged by since that awful day, I have done many hours of thinking about what I should do about all of this. I did some minor things like the day the world remembered I walked two miles to Stenness beach with one of the few flowers I had been able to grow in my garden. I laid this precious bloom gently in the sea and watched it float out with tears streaming down my face as I remembered. Not having a US flag my Shetland flag flew at half-mast during the US time of mourning. It was visible sign to the tourists and to myself that I cared, was American and was remembering.

Last night as I watched the BBC rerun of US entertainment industry telephone I came to the realization of what I should do in the future. Getting on a plane to the US to be near my family sounds like the way out of my pain but it is not. The answer lies in being an every day hero. What does that mean? It means I must go on and live my life and meet my commitments with additional effort to do it better than ever before. Like most people I am not in a position to do anything about the bigger picture. Whatever each of us does we should make an extra effort to do it well. Never forgetting what happened and is yet to happen but doing our small part in a heroic manner. For me it means writing the best words I can. For others it may mean helping getting the economy going again or teaching a child.

It also means turning my longing and worry for my family into a special dedication filled with love that will help me get by as I fill my commitments until Thanksgiving and Christmas when I return to the states. My husband is due to arrive here tomorrow and that will be a great joy and help my healing continue.

My quote was wrong. It is not a horrible time to be alive. It is a challenging time. The answer for what someone should do now is as different as each of us. But, for me the answer is to become an every day hero by doing what I do with greater intensity and meeting my commitments with more devotion and energy. That will be doing my little part in what is yet to come.

An Everyday Person Trying to Get By,

Sharma

I love to hear from you so contact me by email at sharma@sharmakrauskopf.com

You can find more articles in the archive under Island Miniatures/Lighthouse Letters.

I have two books which are directly related to this column. The Last Lighthouse tells how we bought our lighthouse and in Scottish Lighthouses our lighthouse is featured in the 31 lighthouses presented. You can order autographed copies by clicking on the name of the book.

Other books you might be interested in ordering and having me sign are my book for children, Moonbeam Cow, and "Scotland - The Complete Guide and Road Atlas", a beautiful book for which I did the text.