Today is such a weird day. I remember my mother telling me when I was young about how she remembered the day JFK was killed. She remembered where she was and what she was doing. I remember thinking that it was sort of cool to be able to have a day like that, where your whole generation remembers exactly what they were doing at that moment on that specific day. It's not cool. It's not cool that for our generation to have a day like that thousand's of people would have loved one's lost and families tragically torn apart.
On the morning of September 11, 2001 I rode the bus to school. It was a long bus ride (about a half an hour) and I remember falling asleep on the way to school. I had stayed up late the night before studying for a test that day and was exhausted when I got to school. It wasn't until my second period ceramics class that the news of the first tower being hit broke. My friends had already heard about it and were trying to explain to me what was going on. But they didn't really know much yet and my friends over excited descriptions of what was happening left me just confused and not realizing the magnitude of what was happening. By third period (chemistry), my teacher had a television set up in her room, and we all sat quietly that whole hour and watched in horror as the second plane hit the tower and being replayed over and over again. Every class that day was the same, a television set up and the entire class silently watching the news coverage. In my Intermediate Algebra class my teacher had a loved one working in the north tower. They were able to contact this person and confirm their safety. Then the towers collapsed. That teacher's loved one did not make it, along with SO many other's. I remember bursting out in tears as the tower's collapsed, knowing that all those ten's of thousands of people were gone in an instant. When I finally made it home from what seemed like the longest and most emotionally draining day of my life, the television was on. my dad was in the living room watching and I joined him. That's all we did for day's, just watched re-watched the news.
There was something a little bit cool about that day (actually a lot a bit). It was what happened afterwards. People changed, and for the better. People were kinder, more helpful, patriotic. Of course this didn't last forever and people who were so patriotic for week's following the event's went on to bash and ridicule the president of our country. The president who served during this terrible event, and spent the rest of his presidency trying to make sure nothing like this would happen again.
Now ten years later (how has it been that long?!) people are once again patriotic. This day will always bring that out in people, I think. It makes me happy to see people like this, all joined for one cause. I hope that it last's!
I just wanted to take a minute to remember this day and to thank all the people who risk their lives to make sure that it doesn't happen again.
