I woke up this morning, like any other morning. I woke up today and figured that it was Tuesday, which is a logical thought because yesterday was Monday and the day before that was Sunday.
I dragged my sleepy self off to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. I pulled on some clothes and went downstairs for breakfast. Later, I found myself at school (bus was semi-late as usual) and heard the morning announcements.
It was only then that it hit me that it was 9/11. It was any other day, but not like any other day, in the fact that 11 years ago, the Twin Towers fell down from the sky, like an angel falling from grace, smoke still staining the afternoon blue sky.
I remember 9/11. I remember my parents trying to shield me from the TV, where the footage of the plane crashing into the Towers were playing over and over again, like a broken VCR. I remember the issue of Time magazine that week, with the image of the crash hitting one of the towers on the cover, forever frozen in time.
It would’ve been nice if time had stopped there. The plane would’ve just stopped there, barely grazing the steel surface of the building. The people in that building would still be alive. However, time moves on, stopping for no one, and like Newton said, the action completes itself. (The actual law eludes me at the moment for some weird reason.)
So I find myself here today, writing this, and remember that day that changed everyone’s lives. I was in elementary school then and some TV announcer who’s face I can’t remember said that it was a life-changing event. I didn’t feel that sentiment then, but now I do. Life has changed for all of us, and the date 9/11 will never again be just another day. Every time it rolls past we’ll remember that day in history. Because it’s history now, but it doesn’t mean that we need for forget about it.
Last year, it was the 10 year anniversary. Part of that wound closed, but like Maya Lin said when she explained her Vietnam War Memorial design, “I though about what death is, what a loss is. A sharp pain that lessens with time, but can never quite heal over. A scar. The idea occurred to me there on the site. Take a knife and cut open the earth, and with time the grass would heal it. As if you cut open the rock and polished it.” We’ll always have that scar.
So let’s take a moment and remember the men and women who perished that day.
So let’s take a moment and remember the men and women who perished that day.
