25 Years Later, We Remember

 

Mommy here.

You don't realize how fast time goes by until you think back on something as monumental as 9/11 and can't believe it happened a quarter century ago. I heard on the news that over 100 million Americans alive today either weren't born yet or were too young to have personal memories of that day.

I don't have a compelling 9/11 story. It was just an ordinary day, but it was a beautiful day, the sky just as clear and blue in Vermont as it was in lower Manhattan. I went into work for 9, turned on my computer, checked out the news as I always do, and read reports of the first tower being hit. I immediately picked up the phone and called my mom to tell her to turn on the news. Then my boss called out from his office that the second tower had been hit. My co-workers and I all went into his office because his was the only computer able to stream live video and everyone immediately understood the gravity of the situation. Somehow we managed to get back to work, but as the Pentagon, Shanksville, and the collapses happened we all gathered together again.

At lunchtime I went to the grocery store and a television was even set up in there. Everyone was so quiet, just going through the motions. I went home, turned on the news, and didn't turn it off for days. I became a news junkie, watching as we lost our innocence and became a nation at war.

Every year since the television airwaves are flooded with memorial specials, and I watch them all. I don't ever want to forget the horror of that day and how our lives changed because of it. Time marches on and we can't live in the past, but allowing ourselves to forget the magnitude of what happened can never be an option. 

************************************************************

"And on this day, in the year 2001, deals were made high in the sky, meals were bought and eaten on the move, trains arrived, keys were cut, clothes were bought and returned, thousands came and went, and the nation enjoyed the final night of peace." 

The Fox Report with Shepard Smith, 9/10/03