Still Changing 10 Years Later

I have blogged about 9/11 every year since it happened. This time of year, I always feel like American life should slow down and that we should all pause to really remember that day - that we should watch something about it, or read something about it. We should all give up a chunk of our time every September 11 to truly reflect on that horrible day to make sure we never forget it. And we should do it not just to remember those who died, but also to remember the very best humanity has to offer, and how - albeit for a short time - we all came together and loved each other like family.

September 11 is as fresh in my memory now as it was on September 12, 2001. Has it really been 10 years? September 11, 2001 is the only day that I can honestly say I remember from beginning to end. I remember my mother calling and waking me up, telling me "we are under attack." I didn't understand what she meant. Who was attacking us? She told me to turn on the TV, which I did, just in time to see the second plane hit the towers live.

I remember the absolute helpless feeling I had, and the sense that if people could fly airplanes into buildings, they could do just about anything. I was waiting for the world to end. I drove to my parents' house in the afternoon because I felt a sense of urgency about seeing them, stopping to pick up the very last newspaper on the stand on the way. Fifteen minutes after the truck had delivered them, they had all been purchased...all but one. I still have it stashed away and I look at it every year.

I remember everything about that day, but one memory in particular always chills me to the bone. I was driving home from my parents' house, hoping my husband would be sent home early from work (he wasn't.) It was the perfect early autumn type of day in Pennsylvania, and everyone was driving with their windows open. As I sat in traffic in the town square waiting for the light to change, I could hear Tom Brokaw's voice all around me. Everyone in traffic was listening to the same thing with their windows open. I will never forget his words: "We are at war."

As my husband and I watched news coverage into the early morning hours of September 12, I knew everything had changed. I had changed, the country had changed, and the world had changed. Oh, how I had changed. Any innocence I had left before 9/11 was now gone. The cruelty that man was capable of inflicting on itself was overwhelming. It's not something I've ever been able to wrap my mind around. I know there are people who murder and terrorize in the name of God, but it's such a foreign concept to me. For that, at least, I am grateful. I don't want to be able to understand that kind of inhumanity and evil.

Right after 9/11, and in the years following, I became a die-hard Conservative, pushing for 'preemptive' strikes against the 'axis of evil' and fully believing that throwing certain people out of the country and preventing others from coming in was the answer to our security problems. I don't really feel that way anymore. I have not completely gone over to the Left, but as I get older, I realize that pushing away the 'poor, huddled masses" only rips away at the core of who we are supposed to be as a nation - a beacon of hope where others come to find new beginnings. Does it expose us to risk? Of course. But we can't curl up in a defensive ball and lose our identity and our true purpose on this planet.

We can't call ourselves peacemakers and then blow up countries without provocation. And those of us who call ourselves Christians... how can we advocate an "us before them" mentality? We don't like to think about it or admit it, but Jesus would never stand for that.

I guess my politics exist somewhere in the middle these days. But, without a doubt, the same event that hurled me over to the right eventually made me start searching for balance years later.

Yes, 9/11 changed me.

I used to feel sad that my young nieces and nephews would never live in a pre-9/11 world where terrorism was never a real concern, but my views on that have changed, too. I am now thankful that they live in a country that no longer denies the existence of evil or how it so desperately wants to reach out and destroy us. We are more aware now, and, I believe, safer. We are grounded in reality, instead of having our head in the clouds. No doubt, it was a nice way to exist, but not terribly smart.

So I will do some remembering of my own this weekend. I will look back over the images and listen to the sounds that rocked our world 10 years ago, and it will be as shocking as ever. These are the things that never get easier over the years. It never ceases to take my breath away. 

It also never ceases to make me proud to be an American. We come together in times of tragedy, brush ourselves off, and carry on.

We always survive, and we always will. There are some things no terrorist can kill. Pin It

9[11: The Importance of Remembering

I recently had a disturbing conversation with a teenage girl about the events of September 11, 2001. She said she remembered some of it (she was 7 at the time), but that it didn't make much of a difference in her life and, in fact, she didn't really care about it. It was at this point that I started to sound a lot like my grandmother recalling Pearl Harbor. I told her about my own memories - of my mother waking me up to tell me to turn on the television just in time to see the second plate hit the World Trade Center; driving to a local store to buy the last newspaper on the stand (it had only been published an hour before); of sitting in traffic on that abnormally hot day with my windows rolled down, listening to the sound of Tom Brokaw broadcasting from all of the other cars around me with their windows open. I recalled looking through a box in my dining room (I don't remember what I was looking for) and realizing that it was the first time I had ever understood what people meant when they said something felt like a dream.

She sat and listened intently, which she doesn't normally do, so I can only assume it stunned her how much I remembered, and how much it impacted me. What you don't realize when you are seven years old is how much your world is changing around you, at an alarmingly rapid speed, never to go back to the way it was. Kids get over things. What was bothering them one minute is soon forgotten by playing with friends or swinging on the swing set in the backyard. I can understand it not jolting her world like it jolted me. I was a 22-year-old newlywed. She was a little girl, most likely being sheltered from the images by well-meaning adults.

But to not care? That is where I stop understanding her. Thousands of people were going about their lives that day, minding their own business. They were parents, siblings, aunts and uncles. Some of their lives were cut short while they were pouring their morning coffee. Some of them dangled from their 90th story windows having to decide whether it would be better to burn alive or jump to their deaths. While most bystanders were fleeing, fire and police officials were running into the carnage to save those who stood a chance... and many of them died in the process. How can you not care about that?

2001 had been a boring summer. I worked the night shift at a group home and I spent most of my days watching coverage of the Chandra Levy case. In the blink of an eye, the whole world changed. Terrorism used to be something that only happened in the Middle East. We believed we were sheltered from it. We pooh-poohed those who tried to warn us of the impending doom. We never dreamed an airplane could be hijacked in this country. We became afraid - of stadiums, shopping malls, parking garages, and of course sky scrapers. For a (very) brief moment in time, we came together and stopped bickering about politics and we were united in grief and determination to overcome what had been done to us.

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

Eventually, the smoke cleared - literally - and our unity fell into disarray politics become more volatile than ever before. These are the things I remember. I still mourn September 10, 2001, before everything changed. There was a time when I was sheltered myself, nearly oblivious to the worst of the worst evils mankind could dish out. I lost what was left of my innocence on 9/11. I don't walk around in fear anymore, but the topic of terrorism is never very far away.

And I am sad not only that some people don't give a damn, but that they will never really remember life before 9/11. It was nice. It was peaceful. It is now history. Pin It