I woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise. The weather was perfect. It was sunny and cool. And it's a Tuesday. On September 11, 2001 in NYC, it was sunny, cool and it was a Tuesday.
11 years ago today, all of our lives changed forever. I grew up about 45 minutes outside of NYC. This tragedy had hit so close to home for me and for a lot of my friends. There are too many people that I know whose lives were negatively impacted by these senseless acts that happened on 9/11.
I will never forget that day, where I was, or what I was doing. I was in the 6th grade and I was in reading class. It was just like every other morning until everyone noticed people were getting signed out of school. We had no idea what was going on. My classmates would ask the teachers and they would not answer us. They kept on teaching like it was a normal Tuesday. I went home on the bus and I got off at my bus stop. My Dad was there to pick me up (which had never happened before) and told me what happened. Even though I was 10 years old, it didn't take very long to understand what had happened after I saw the video of the 2 planes crashing into the towers. I did not know what terrorism was but I knew this was tragic. I had a feeling that this wasn't an accident. Like everyone else in America, I was fixated and glued to the TV. I could not believe what I was seeing and I started crying.
I remember time just standing still for about a week afterwards. Many of my classmates were absent from school because their families needed or wanted them to be home. They were scared, frightened, and terrified. Us New Yorkers are relentless, proud, ambitious, and have we have that "don't mess with us" attitude. But I think those 1-2 days after 9/11 was one of the first times that I saw New Yorkers shaken up.
But we built ourselves up. We became strong, as New Yorkers and Americans. Seeing that picture of those 3 members of the FDNY raise that American Flag at the WTC site was something that gave us hope. Watching the first Yankee Game after 9/11 where President Bush threw out the first pitch and gave us the thumbs up was something that helped us understand that we were going to pull through this tragedy together as Americans. Watching the football games and seeing the huge 300 lb football players crying their eyes out when the Star Spangled Banner was being played and during the moment of silence. I feel at those moments, we became something bigger than ourselves.
To this day, it's so hard to wrap my head around the fact that I had walked or driven by those towers so many times before. And then they were gone. I still struggle with why something like this had happened and why so many innocent lives were lost. I know that I am not alone. It still gets to me every day, why tragedies like this happen. But it is amazing to me to hear the stories that I have heard. People who missed their trains to go to work and because of that, they are alive. People who were in the towers, were able to escape, and helped others out to safety. People who saw what happened, decided to enlist in the military, and risk their lives everyday so we can live free. Or the firefighters or policemen from all over the tri-state area (not just FDNY and NYPD) who were off duty that day (or didn't even work in the city) and still went into lower Manhattan to help out in any way they could. I am proud to say that my Uncle is one of those men.
I think that Bin Laden didn't expect us to come together as a nation after this tragedy. I think he thought that he had won and he broke us down. He thought wrong. After this tragedy, we became united. We became strong. We became one.
I had driven past Ground Zero only a handful of times since 9/11. But I had a chilling experience last November. I was going to a wedding in downtown NYC. I stayed in a hotel that stands right next to the 9/11 memorial and where the twin towers once stood. My window looked over part of the memorial and you can still see the some of the rubble. I looked down from my window and I saw so many people there, lining up to see the 9/11 memorial. Suddenly I got a wave of this eerie feeling throughout my body. I thought about what happened in that spot across the street only 10 years before. It was hard for me to be there and to be around that area. And the fact that my room number was 2001 also gave me the chills. It was a feeling that I cannot fully explain.
Nevertheless, Bless our troops, firefighters, policemen, and everyone who's lives were impacted on that day. I am proud to be a New Yorker and an American. Life does go on, but as Americans and as a nation, we will never forget and we will always remember.
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