Remembering

Six years ago today I had just started my freshman year at U.T. I was sitting in my cell biology class waiting for the professor to arrive, when someone said they heard a plane had hit a building in New York. Like everyone, I assumed it was something small- an errant pilot- and continued to worry about how I was ever going to memorize all this new information for our first test. Class ran from 9-9:50am CST and I returned to my dorm to find every television in the lobby turned on to CNN. I ran up to my room, turned on our little TV, and sat in stunned silence with tears running down my face while I caught up on all the that had happened while I had fretted about the Krebb cycle.

My thoughts are no more profound today than they were then. I didn't know anyone in New York at the time, so I wasn't personally affected- and yet I was personally affected. I suppose we all were. The endless images of planes hitting the building, the buildings falling, rescue workers running in amid the smoke and rubble continue to haunt me. MSNBC is re-airing their 9/11 footage today and I sat feeding Landon this morning with tears running down my face again. He'll never know a pre-9/11 world. A world where we could meet our family and friends as soon as they got off their planes at the airport, where we didn't feel the threat of a terrorist attack looming anytime we're in a tall building or densely populated area, where the US felt safe and isolated from all the problems you heard on the world news. I mourn the loss of our innocence as a country.

One of the things I remember most about that day, and the days that followed, was that I had never felt more pride as an American. The rescue workers running up to the buildings, fellow citizens standing in line to give blood- wanting to do anything to help, and the general coming together of the entire country are what stand out in my memory. Since then the event has been politicized, memorialized, and used as motivation for things I don't agree with- but on that day, everyone was standing together.