I was 14 and uninterested in the goings on of my own country. I had single-minded focus in the NOW of my life, and that didn’t include enriching my knowledge of what was happening around me in a larger capacity.

The ironic part about it was that I was in my first class of the day which just happened to be US history. I remember stopping long enough from passing my folded up note to my friend and looking up in slight interest as my teacher abruptly abandoned her lecture to turn on the tv.

I’ll never forget the look in her eyes as she covered her mouth, shaking her head in disbelief. A few minutes later an administrator came to fetch me…my mother stood in the hall entrance clearly agitated, telling me that she was worried because my older brother was stuck in Manhattan unable to get out. On a whim he had gone into the city with some friends. I didn’t know what the twin towers were, but watching that carnage ad seeing people jump out of buildings to avoid a painful death made my stomach drop and my heart pound.

my brother was alright..and just 3 months ago we visited the memorial together. It was 8:30pm and walking through silently I let my hand trace the names of the fallen and stopped at seeing a woman’s name with her unborn child next to her, all I could do was cry with such an overwhelming sadness for those lives we lost.

There are sefining moments in life, and visiting yhe memorial was closure to a situation I didn’t fully appreciate at the time