9.11.2011

I was fourteen on September 11th, 2001.  It's strange to think that before that, "September 11th" didn't evoke any thoughts different from what "September 10th" or "September 12th" would.  It was just another day.

I had a student council meeting at break that day.  When I walked into my teacher's classroom for the meeting, the TV was on & the few students already there were silent.  The meeting was obviously cancelled & we just sat & watched.  We watched as the second plane hit & confirmed that this was not an accident.  After that, the hallways were silent.

Back then, I knew even less about current events & politics than I do now.  I remember my friend explaining to me just what the World Trade Center was & why this was a huge deal, even aside from the fact that hundreds of people were just killed.

This quickly added a new set of words to our everyday language that hadn't been present in my life before.  Words like war, Al Qaeda, terrorism, & casualties.  It was a long time before the TV stayed off for any length of time.  I didn't really even know what I was watching, but I couldn't take my eyes away from the pile of rubble as workers searched for days on end.

I remember that in my computer class, we had to type a letter to our grandchildren, telling them about that day.  I wish I had that now.  I wonder what my initials thoughts were.  The only ones that stand out vividly in my mind were about war.  There'd never been a war during my lifetime that felt like war to me.  I associated war with the things we talked about in school...rations & drafts &...Rosie the Riveter, honestly.  I didn't understand what war would look like in the year 2001.

A few years later is when I first went to New York.  I remember going to Ground Zero, turning & looking away from the rubble & toward the streets.  I couldn't imagine being there that day.  I'd seen the pictures of those very streets, filled with smoke & ash, & people running in terror.   I love that city.  The tall buildings, the bustle of people, the sounds, & the smells.  But that day, I can imagine it would feel like an entrapment - walled in by the skyscrapers, no room to breathe, stifled by the smoke, & only the sounds of sorrow.

I hate what happened on that day.  I mourn the countless families that were personally effected by that loss.  However, I am glad that I was alive on this day, ten years ago.  I'm glad I experienced that profound sense of patriotism & unity that came with the wave of mourning.  I hate that something as horrific as a terrorist attack is what caused our country to really come together & feel like one nation under God, I am glad that in that, we see hope.  We see a glimpse of what it would look like for everyone to actually believe in prayer, for everyone to have faith in a God much bigger than herself, for every person to be brought to her knees before God.  We see hope.  We still see God creating beauty from the ashes.

{If you have a post about 9.11.01, feel free to link up with Blair & read others' thoughts on that day.}