It’s amazing to me that 9-11 will be just a story in my children’s history books. They will hear about it, they will think it’s awful but they won’t know what it was like. Not truly.
My husband and I will never forget our story that morning (will anyone who lived through it?). Having been married on 9-8-01, we flew to Hawaii on the 10th. The morning of the 11th was our first morning on the island of Kauai in Hawaii, and my Mom called to wake us up and tell us to turn on the television.
We watched with shock and horror from thousands of miles away and spent the first day of our honeymoon making desparate calls home to loved ones to make sure they were okay. One of my husband’s groomsmen worked on that block in Manhattan; my good friend and bridesmaid had a boyfriend (now her husband) who worked in the towers. Thankfully both were okay that day.
Thousands of other Americans were no so lucky on that day. I still tear up just typing this, a decade later.
A year or two after 9-11 happened, I had someone close to me comment on my wedding. She told me she considered our wedding the last day of fun – the last day of her innocence before her life shattered. (A close relative of hers passed away on 9-11.) It saddened me. I feel as though the same thing happened to my husband and I too with the memory of our wedding. We laughed, we danced, we felt safe.
In that single (ginormous) act of terrorism, our country was attacked at our core. I no longer felt safe.
But in my attempt to find something positive out of all of this, I hold onto the fact that 9-11 only served to strengthen our national spirit.
I love my country. I hold to it’s ideals. I believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To all of the terrorists in the world who try and break us – we will not be broken.
9-11-2001. We will not forget.
God Bless America.
Well said. Shock, horror. anger. disbelief, fright. sorrow.. the whole gamut of grief’s stages we all felt that day and for a long time after- still in fact. But, agree completely with you that it has served to strengthen our most wonderful county and maintain our resolve to uphold the principles on which this fine country was created. And yes, may God bless us all.