After 12 years, my memory of September 11th, 2001 is no less vivid what it was moments after the attack. It doesn’t matter what I was doing, or where I might have been going: those moments froze time for me. Nothing in my life, or business seemed important. We all watched helplessly. Many of us like myself were almost completely unable to grasp what we were witnessing and how it would affect our nation and our people for the rest of our lives.
I do my best to take the time to reflect on everything that happened that day, and how it has changed us in the years that followed. In my mind, my anger is still fresh. I still find myself reliving some of the shock I felt even when I look at pictures today. To me, it’s still senseless. I sometimes catch myself thinking about the “what ifs.” Like what if I was in one of the towers? What if someone I loved was? What if I was a first responder? What if I wasn’t near ground zero, but the dust from the collapse came to rest on my tables and counter tops in my downtown apartment. Every New Yorker was affected as every American was affected, with the deepest sadness, monumental confusion and unbridled anger.
Here we are 12 years later. Can you say you feel better? Do you feel vindicated with the certain key players now out of the picture? If your answer is “no,” join the countless number of Americans who still feel the heartache from that day. I was going to get up on my soap box and rant and rave about how we, the people of this country, must never forget what happened and why it may have happened, but then I realize that it is impossible to forget. No matter how hard we try, we will never forget the day we lost a lot of our innocence. Violence came to our soil. The most evil, despicable and vile violence was brought to us. How can you forget that?
I’m writing this on the 12th Anniversary of September 11th. If you read it, it may be next year, it may be in the middle of the year, it might not be necessarily today, but it shouldn’t matter. You should never get over the shock and the sadness of that day. It might get a little easier as time passes, sure, but with the way things are in Syria and Iran at this very moment, it’s not that easy to forget.
For me, my memory is of the common folk and first responders who lost their lives, or were injured. The legacy of their memory that their family has to carry on is forever linked with an atrocity that no one should have to experience. Pray for the families of those who fell. Pray that that day is never repeated anywhere on Earth.