I remember that day very clearly. I didnt get to watch the events unfold live, instead i only found out after my dad had picked me and my older sister off school. I was 12. When we got into the car, the radio was on and all i could hear was people talking loud and sounding desperate. I asked my dad “Why are they yelling?” and he told me that some sick men had taken planes and flew them into the Twin Towers and also the Pentagon. At first i didnt really understand what it meant, i mean.. How can a 12 y/o kid understand an event of such magnitude?

We eventually got home and my mom was watching the news report and so i approached the TV to find out what was all this really about. The picture i saw will never fade away from my memories.. I saw one tower with a big hole and dense smoke pouring out of it, then i saw as another plane flew into the other tower and exploded. My heart started pounding really fast. I was terrified.

My older sister started to say how she’s “never going to board a plane” and how she’s never going to live in a “tall building”. I put up an act, pretending i wasnt really scared or anything. But i agreed with everything she was saying. How could i ever feel safe again? If this happened in America, it could happen here (Santo Domingo).

I spent the rest of the day watching time after time the video footage of the planes crashing into the towers, the towers crumbling down, the poor-souls jumping/falling off the towers. Come night time i was petrified. I didnt sleep that night. I didnt sleep on 9/11 for the next 3 or 4 years. Every time the calendar hit the 9/11 mark, it’d be like this dreadful event has happened again and again. It took me a few years to finally comprehend that this was the world we are living in and that nothing was ever going to be the same again.

Thanks God that i was able to make it to N.Y this past August and was able to experience the 9/11 memorial and museum. It was such a very special thing to me and i was able to catch and memorize this beautiful quote:

“No day shall erase you from the memory of time” – Vigil

Never Forget.