Thirteen years ago. September eleventh. I was three. I still remember that day. Sitting on the couch, watching the news. A plane had crashed, a building was burning. A second plane crashed. People on TV screamed. Should I be scared? Where is this? What is happening? Why are those buildings falling down?! Something hard for a three year old to understand, hard for everyone to understand. A moment of shock. A moment of terror. A moment of grief. A moment of confusion. A moment of anger. Then a moment of realization, America had been attacked! A day of anticipation and sorrow. A day of silence and thoughts. What would happen next? Were we safe in our own homes? A sleepless night. September twelfth, a day of decisions. How would we recover from this tragedy? We pick ourselves up, because we are America. A day of unity. As people suddenly put aside their political beliefs and came together as ONE NATION. A day of prayer for the families that lost their loved ones, for our safety, for our strength. A week of shock and putting the pieces together. A week of mending the nation back together. A week of recovery. A week of resuming everyday life, but now with a different perspective, on how fragile life really is. Hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year, America heals. I have grown up as the country has recovered. Looking back now it is still hard to comprehend, as it is for everyone, what happened that terrible day. September eleventh is a sad day, even eleven years later. But we are the United States, we cannot be destroyed. The years have passed, but 9/11 will always be remembered. A defining terrible moment in the growth of our nation.
I wrote this two years ago on 9/11. I still feel the same and couldn’t word it any differently. 9/11 will forever be remembered.