The morning of September 11th I awoke to my mother bagning on my bedroom door yelling “they’re attacking the Twin Towers!” She told me someone had flown 2 planes into the Trade Center and they were on fire. I jumped out of bed and began to watch the news coverage, and I sat dumbfounded at what I was witnessing. I picked up the phone to call my x, who I hadn’t talked to much since our breakup, and I told him “no matter what happens today, I want you to know I love you.”
Then the first tower collapsed. Even though I knew what I was watching was live, and that it was really happening, it just didn’t seem real to me … like a bad nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. All I could think about was if any of my college friends were in either of the towers, and prayed they got out alive. Then the second tower.
Tears began to well up in my eyes as I watched in horror.
As I continued to watch the news coverage, it still all seemed surreal. It was almost like I was in denial that something this horrible could happen on United States soil, much less New York City. All I could think about were the thousands of lives that were affected by the loss of a loved one. The way I figured it was that if every one of those 3,000 peeople knew 10 people, then 30,000 lives were forever changed. And it was just a number that my brain couldn’t conceive.
My heart goes out to all those affected by the cowardly acts of people who would seek to harm the innocent in order to advance their own barbaric causes. Israel has been dealing with this type of guerrilla warefare for years. I guess we were naive to think it could never happen here.
September 11th made me realize even more how fleeting life is, and how fragile we are. It made me realize to never let a day go by without letting those close to you know how much they mean to you. It made me realize that those people that I love could be gone in an instant, without good-byes. And lastly, it made me appreciate how grand life is and that every day is a blessing in disguse, and to sieze every day with everything I have inside me.