Like almost everyone over the age of 21 I remember this day vividly. It stuns me to think now that there are kids reaching the age of voting who truly don't give this a passing thought. It's a page in history books that doesn't affect them today. Except it isn't just a fact....it affects everything now.
The anniversary of this horror sends me into a depression reminiscent of the one I felt for days, and weeks, and months after these unthinkable events. My husband would tell you that for a very long time, I cried everyday. I didn't have to imagine the tragedy, there were unending visual representations of it everywhere.
That was an event that broke me.
It broke me and then rebuilt me.
That was the day that a deep abiding patriotism and love of country and my fellow Americans came shooting forth and it has not abated. It lit a burning fire inside me that will never be quenched. There will always be a flag flying on my home....I will always sing the National Anthem and I will always say the pledge of allegiance even if it is only to myself, a ritual I conduct in quiet along with the Lord's Prayer. It sets the tone of the day for me.
I always loved America.....you could not live in a world with my Daddy if you didn't. And so for a long time I loved it because Daddy demanded it of me. But my broken heart fell in love with my country and its people for my own reasons that day.
The lives lost, senselessly. The lives given, bravely. The coming together of a majority of Americans with a common purpose. To heal, to grieve, to honor and to protect. We all felt the darkening foreboding skies of unlenting grief which seemed to never have a end..........but ended in a blaze of white hot anger.
And we acted and we moved as a country, as a people, united.
No one had to call us or draft us or coerce us. We just did the work.
And we promised.......we would not forget.
But some have. It is a harsh lesson, a dirty lesson, a cruel lesson and a painful one that some people have wanted to shield their children from. I get it. But if you don't talk to your children and your grandchilren about everything about that day....you do them a disservice. They deserve to know how it affected YOU. You still have their ear, you can still bring that day into a lesson for them. It might not matter now, but the day is coming when they will understand exactly the what, where, who, why and how of your personal interpretation of events on 9-11.
I do not forget.
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