Always Remember!

As I drove to work this morning, I was brought to tears again as I listened to the recordings of the events of that tragic day 11 years ago.  9-11-01...a day that will truly live in infamy.  Can it really have happened 11 years ago?  It seems like only yesterday that I was watching the events on my television in shock.  It was a beautiful and sunny September morning...not a cloud in the bluest of skies.  I was rushing as usual to get out the door of my parents' house and on my way to college.  I was in my junior year of college at Meredith, and I lived at home with my parents and commuted back and forth to school in Raleigh.  I had just turned 21, was head over heels in love with the man of my dreams, and just had my whole life ahead of me.  I was also a bit naive to the ways of the world and felt pretty safe and protected living in my Christian home, the parsonage of the church where my dad was the pastor.  My best friends were from my church.  I just could never imagine that in one seemingly normal day, my whole world would change.  I didn't lose anyone I knew thankfully on that fateful day, but I think the events left us all with an ache in our hearts that would never go away.  I had just climbed into my little car and turned on the engine when the events of an "explosion" at the WTC in New York came through my speakers.  I was so shocked and immediately jumped out of the car and ran back into the house to turn on the TV.  My mom was sitting in her night gown at the breakfast table and was like "What's wrong?"  I turned on the little TV in the kitchen, and we just sat and watched in amazement.  Within seconds of my turning on the TV, we saw a plane go flying across the screen and "disappear" behind the second tower.  The announcer was saying "Was that a plane? Did anyone see that?"  Then, the giant fireball and smoke.  I immediately felt an ache in the pit of my stomach and said, "That was no accident.  That had to have been a terrorist attack!"  My fingers shake as I type this and remember.

To me, the true irony of these events is that this terrorist attack was obviously meant to attack our nation's pride and strike fear into our hearts in order to weaken our country.  But when I watched the countless brave men and women who risked everything to save complete strangers and heard about a plane full of the bravest men and women I could ever know who took their plane over and crashed it in a field to prevent further loss of life, I can't help but feel only pride.  Pride for my country and for my fellow Americans.  That is the America I am proud to call home!  Within hours, the messages from our leaders filled us with hope instead of fear.  Yes, the towers fell and with them many of our brothers and sisters lost their lives.  They left a huge hole in our hearts and lives.  Our lives will never be the same, but I never want those people to have died in vain.  Hate and terrorism did not win on that fateful day.  We fought and we will still fight for the future of this great nation that stands and fights for those that cannot fight for themselves.

“Let us trust God, and our better judgment to set us right hereafter. United we stand, divided we fall." - Patrick Henry, 1799

I will never forget!

There are many wonderful commemorative pictures out there, but this is the one I "created" right after the events occurred with satellite images of the before and after.  The hole and smoke has now been filled with a memorial dedicated to those lost and reminds us that we must carry on and keep this country strong.