I remember

Never forget… I hate that term.

How could you forget? Unless you weren’t born or have some mental disability it’s impossible to forget. Those images are seared into your memory. Most people do not have anything majorly significant happen to them during their lives. Sure you might graduate from college, get a job, or start a family… and those are significant in their own right. But hardly world changing events. You grow up and you’re told that you’re invincible “the world is your oyster,” you can do anything that you set your mind to. For the most part you’ll believe that. You don’t have anything to fear… well not anything real at least. Then suddenly in one day that all changed.

The boogieman is real, he has a face, and he is scary. Death became very real to everyone that day. We were faced not just with tragedy but our own mortality. Because deep down we all knew that morning 3000 people got up, and the world was their oyster, they believed they could achieve their dreams. They got up and started their days like they normally would. They had no fear of the day or of what would happen. Why would they?

I remember. I remember being careless. I remember taking my life for granted. I remember that morning where it all changed.

I got up that morning a little before 9am and turned on the morning news. They were talking about how a plane accidentally crashed into one of the towers. It took me a few seconds to comprehend what I was seeing. It didn’t make sense. Not once did I think terrorist, but I thought it didn’t make sense. Then I watched in horror as the second hit. Then i knew at the moment, this wasn’t an accident… and that everything changes. So I watched in disbelief of what was happening. My best friend called me and while on the phone we both watched the towers fall.

I remember my words clearly… because they were spoken in such calm disbelief. The towers were gone.

I remember that image? I remember crying. 

It was shortly after that the news began to report that another plane went down in Pittsburgh. This news prompted my phone to immediately explode as I was living in Pittsburgh at the time. Frantic friends and family members calling to see if I was ok and what was going on. I told them I didn’t know… everyone in the city was was scrambling to figure out what was going on. In the bittersweetness of the situation the plane crashed just south of the city about 45 minutes from where I lived at the time. 

I remember how quiet and empty the city was that day.

In one day, the world changed. Life was more precious. People stopped being blurs in our lives. We all knew that any moment everything we hold dear could be taken away. So many people said goodbye to their loved ones that day… thinking that in 8 or 9 hours they would be home. 3000 people… never got to go home that day.

I remember wrapping my arms around strangers as they weeped. I remember being hugged by old friends as I weeped. 

I remember… because how could I forget?