Kids are in bed and I finally have a few minutes to sit and think about 9/11. I’ve been reading everyone’s posts and video memorials of that day, until I just couldn’t stand to watch anymore. I’m sure I look “a hot mess” as a friend of mine would say. I am glad to see that everyone is remembering in their own way, but I still worry that many are only remembering because it is the anniversary of 9/11. I wonder if it still lives in everyone’s daily lives as it did in those days following that horrific day. It does mine. I’m not sure anyone really even cares, but I feel compelled to put attempt to put into words what I felt that day and the days that followed.
I was sitting in my cubicle, listening to Bon and Sheri as I did most days back then. I remember them breaking into their normal joking banter to say that a plane had just crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. A few minutes later, they stated that another plane had crashed into the other tower and at that point everyone was certain it wasn’t an accident. I slowly stood up at my cubicle and looked around to see if anyone else was hearing what I was hearing, only to see almost everyone in the room standing, looking around in disbelief. It was almost like we were all checking to make sure we weren’t imagining what we were hearing. I’d only been married for 5 ½ weeks on 9/11 and my first thought to myself was, “Our lives just changed forever.” At that point, it was a selfish thought about me and my husband. I had married a U.S. Army soldier, never dreaming that less than 6-weeks later we would be looking at him going to war. Pre 9/11 that just wasn’t a thought that ever entered into my head. Even though that initial thought was selfish, I don’t know that there could be a truer thought. For so many, our lives were forever changed that horrific day.
For me, I now lived with the knowledge that one day soon; I would be sending my husband off to war. It was never a thought of “if” he would go, but when. I remember feeling as my confidence and security in my own country were gone. I didn’t feel “safe” anymore. Even though we hadn’t planned to have kids, yet, I started wondering if the post 9/11 world was even one I would want to bring kids into. However, the coming days brought new hope. I saw our wonderful nation come together in a way I had never seen. It was inspirational! I looked around at the people I interacted with and those on the news as they put together medical supply drives, fundraising drives and so many other fantastic things and I thought to myself that maybe, just maybe this was going to be a start to sending this country down the right road.
It saddens me that for many of us, that coming together as one nation, was a fleeting moment in time. All too soon, 9/11 was no longer in the forefront of our mind. I won’t say we forgot, but we certainly didn’t stay that close knit family that our nation seemed to be there for a while. I guess maybe that is the reason for my cynicism around this anniversary of 9/11. Are we all remembering because it is the anniversary, especially because it is the 10-year anniversary? I only wish that we would all remember every day, not so much the fear and sadness we felt on that horrific day, but how we felt on the days after as we truly came together as a nation and loved our neighbor as we did our family. That is what I wish we could truly hold onto from 9/11, that love of our country, that feeling of unity and that spirit of wanting to help our fellow man.
