September 11, 2001-Ten Years

I am having a hard time starting this particular entry. It has been ten years since the single greatest tragedy our nation has ever seen and I felt compelled to reflect, but I am at a loss on how to start. There is not a single day that goes by that I do not think about the events of September 11, 2001. The numbers 9-11 are no longer just numbers, but a constant reminder. I cannot look at the time when the clock reads 9:11am/pm, or even talk about my final class period of the day without a slight hesitation. Ten years passing has not made that any easier.

It is a difficult day for me. It is a day that I still strive to understand. I struggle to wrap my mind around the shear magnitude of those whose lives were forever altered in a single second. Not only those who lost their lives, and their family members who miss them everyday, but even those people who where able to evacuate the buildings or those who missed their flights that morning. Each one of those lives will never be the same. They all carry that day with them as they live out their daily lives. I wish that I could reach out to each one of them.... I wish that I could let them know that I share in their pain.... I wish that I could take some of that burden and that sorrow from them....nobody should have to feel such pain.....I wish that I could help them.....

I think that is what bothers me the most. All of the 3,000 or so people that past away that day had family and friends that cared about them. They had people that relayed on them. They had people that loved them. They had children who looked forward to playing catch with their dads and shopping with their moms. Those children had their lives flipped upside down because of hate. That is a pain that can never be erased with time. 

They say that time heals all wounds. I don't know if I believe that to be entirely true. Time has allowed people to come to terms with what happened. It has allowed people to understand the why and to begin to move on with their lives and adjust to a new way of life. There will always be that memory. It will always replay in the mind. The wound may have closed, but there will forever be that scar. 

I have taken from 9/11/01 the importance of living each day to the fullest extent, telling the people around you that you care and love them everyday, not taking anything for granted, and to not waste time being sad. Anything can happen. Those people have given me that gift, and I will honor them each day by doing just that. They brought together our nation in a way that I never thought possible, and I am so thankful that I was able to be a part of that unity.

The first 16 years of my life were lived in a different world than the last ten years of my life. It pains me to think that my little niece and nephews will never know the world as I did. Terrorism was not in my vocabulary and War was just something you learned about in a text book. Nobody thought twice about getting on a plane, and I had no idea that we even had a color coded terror alert system. It is amazing what a split second can do. 

I do not dwell in the sadness and I do not think that we should take the day as one of mourning. I believe that it should forever be a day of true remembrance. We should take those moments of silence, we should listen to their names, we should remember the events, and we should reflect on how they have changed our nation and ourselves. Talking about it and remembering does not mean that we are stuck in the past, and not talking about it and remembering it will not change the fact that it happened and that it will forever be painful. We should never stop remembering and honoring. I think that it is important to educate the younger generations and allow them to be a part of the day and to teach them those precious life lessons that those who lost their lives left us with. 

I will take each September 11, for as long as I live, and I will reflect. I will shed a tear.  I will stand proud as an American. I will pray for those families. I will light my candle in my window, and I will never forget.