I Remember

Recently my days have been gobbled up by real life, but what is real life?  Very few days in my life have answered that question, but those that have were profound.  Eleven years an event happened that had no direct impact on me personally, but yet it showed what “real life” can really be like, in all its horrific honesty.  So, despite the fact that I don’t have the free days to work on my projects I’m taking this day, even if it late, to remember one day when the complexion of the world was changed.

I worked midnights then, and I had been home from work only a couple of hours.  Like most people that work that kind of shift, I went to bed as soon as  got home, and for once I went right to sleep.  I had not been asleep long before I woke up.  That was not all that strange, it happened often.  I was also living at my parents at the time and on this particular morning when I woke up I decided to see what my parents were up to.

I walked into the front room where my parents were watching the morning news, nothing odd about that.  What was odd was the weird look on their faces and the way they were looking at the TV.  That too, was also odd.  My parents were not dramatic people and their expressions could not have been any more dramatic.  I looked at the TV just as the second plane slammed into The World Trade Center.  I sat down in a chair and did not move for hours. 

I watched the video from New York, I watched the sun silhouette against the burning and smoking towers, I watched them both collapse.  My memory ends there.  I have no idea why, but after that moment I don’t remember much of the rest of that fateful day.

I wish that I could remember the whole day, but I am grateful that I am blessed to remember the events up to the moment the towers collapsed with such clarity.  When my little girl gets older and asks me about that day, I know I will be able to tell her what happened and how it happened, and why in all the terrible color of the truth.

I’m talking about all this not because I wanted tell you about what I was doing that I day, because it is totally unimportant..  I told you this because I remember.  That is the only reason, I remember and I want you to remember.

            I am a firm believer in the idea that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.  I believe that with every ounce of my being.  I ask all of you to remember.  Remember those that died in the attacks, remember those that died trying to save people in the towers and those that died in Pennsylvania and those at the Pentagon.  Remember those tat died in the events that happened directly because of that Tuesday morning.  Remember the fallen and remember the pain, so that the world will never see anything like this again.