My friend posted this on her wall on Facebook today:
"On May 25th, 2001, Michael Bay's 'Pearl Harbor' hit theater's. I was talking with my grandma about wanting to go see it and she said, 'I don't want to see a movie about it, I lived through it.'....40 some years from now, when one of my grand children expresses a want to see the new 9/11 movie.. I'll tell them the same thing. 'I don't want to see a movie about it, I lived through it.' "
Ten years ago today... the lives of everyone living on this earth and the lives of those yet to be born changed forever. It may not be a change that is apparent in everyday life (though, for some, it is), but lives HAVE changed. And I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing the day the world stood still...
I was living at my dad's house and had been getting ready for school. I was a senior at Skyline High School in Idaho Falls. My dad got up and turned on the TV while I continued the long process of primping in the bathroom. Suddenly, he yelled, "Wow, some idiot pilot ran into the World Trade Center! Heather, you need to come in and see this!" Moments later...as I was walking down the hallway into the living room, the 2nd plane hit. All I could see was my dad's face as it drained of color and he said, more to himself than to me, "This wasn't an accident. This is an attack."
I drove to school that day, listening to the AM radio, something that I NEVER do, so that I could hear as much information as I could about how and why it had happened. My first period class was LDS Seminary and I went straight there, no pit stops.
Everyone was talking about it while Sister Beck was trying to get class started. We were hearing as people trickled into the classroom that we were the only class trying to teach a lesson. The rest of the building was watching the footage. But, Sister Beck continued on. Eventually, little by little, students began to pick up their things and leave her classroom. I was one of them.
I went into the next classroom over and asked another teacher what had been happening. He told me that they were thinking the buildings were going to collapse because they weren't stable. He was crying. I remember thinking how scared I was because A TEACHER was showing fear. He told me, "Heather, you need to take in as much of this as you can because from this day forward, life as we know it will never be the same. Your children and your grandchildren will ask you about it someday and you need to remember, always." At that moment, I knew... he was totally right.
I was numb for most of the rest of the day, sometimes crying, sometimes worrying, but most times, just praying fervently for all the people who's lives had been lost, for the families who were in mourning, and for the leaders of our country and of NYC. Classes were held only as unstructured spaces of time spent watching televisions and trying to glean any information we could.
At lunch, we were told that they were going to hold a few minutes silence and that they were going to play a song over the intercom. They asked people to not be disrespectful (like we could be in the midst of our numb horror) and that if we would like to have prayer circles, there were going to be several in different locations. The song they played was "Prayer of the Children":
The sobbing wracked everyone's bodies. Students, teachers, it didn't matter. We all cried together.
The rest of the day was a blur. I remember coming home that night and immediately writing in my journal the basic description of what had happened and that we thought it might have been Osama bin Laden but we weren't sure. I just made sure to record my feelings. The thought of what my teacher had told me earlier that morning rang through my head and I knew that I needed to do everything I could to make sure I remembered.
In the days following, I made sure to buy and keep the newspapers for a week straight, documenting everything (I still have them, tucked away in the bottom of my cedar chest) and my family went to candlelight vigils held. I wept, I prayed, and I held out hope that somehow, America would find a way to make things right again.
About a year later, I went to Ground Zero and witnessed first hand what was left. It's a hallowed place. You don't even feel like you can talk above a whisper. The scars left on the earth were amazing to see. It is unfathomable what happened on that day in that place.
So today, just as I do every year, I think back and I cry. I want to watch footage and yet, I can't bring myself to do it. They only show everything they showed all those years ago and it still hurts. Every American who was old enough to understand what was happening I'm sure feels the same... it hurts as though the wound was made fresh. The footage is gruesome and for those who watched it firsthand, it inflicts the same horror.
But, I also am reminded of why we fight the wars we do and what makes every American... an American. We are proud, we are tough and we fight for what's right. If you come into our country and hurt us, we will not stop hunting you until justice is served. And while I do not rejoice in the fact that we finally got Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011 and that another person had to die, I do feel pride in the fact that we didn't start the fight, but we certainly finished it.
And today, more than any other day, even than on the 4th of July, I am proud to say that I AM an American and I WILL NOT FORGET.
No comments:
Post a Comment