September 11, 2001

I started to write about this day and had to delete the entire post because DH showed me that my memory of the days surrounding this attack was flawed.  I had indeed forgotten some of the chronology of events.  What I do remember still are the emotions that I felt.

I felt anger at the perpetrators for interrupting so many lives, including my own.  We had gotten engaged in the wee hours of September 10, 2001, and I had only a day to share my news and joy before this national tragedy struck.  I felt saddened for those whose lives were not only interrupted but ruined.  I cried alot hearing the stories of loved ones lost, lives that were forever changed, children who would never know a parent.  I felt anxious.  We had a friend who lived in NYC and worked in the financial district.  I tried to reach him as soon as I heard about the attacks.  It wasn't until early evening that I finally heard from him. He was okay, but shaken.  I felt confused, and even guilty.  The attacks were so overwhelming and senseless.  They tinged my happiness with devastation.  But my life would still continue while so many others wouldn't.

Although I had forgotten much and had not thought much about September 11, 2001 in the past few years, I still remembered some minute details, especially those from the stories of the United flight 93 passengers.  I remembered that one was a father of two boys and his wife was pregnant with their third child.  He was the one who said, "Let's roll" before the passengers attacked their hijackers.  I remembered that another man's wife had just had a baby a weeks before.  As I watched anniversary coverage on the news this weekend, I remembered these stories and more before they were retold.  As I watched the images of people in the windows of the World Trade Center towers and heard the calls to 911 dispatchers, all of those emotions that had lain dormant in my memory for ten years flooded back.  With them came tears that I just couldn't stop.  I cried again for the loss, and I cried for all that hadn't changed in ten years.  These attacks were supposed to be a wake up call.  We were going to change for the better, make the world a better place for future generations.  I cried because things seem worse, or just as bad, and not better.  I hope, though, that the world will still someday change for the better, and as long as we do still remember that day there will still be hope.