Remembering

Today is, as you all well know, September 11.

I don't remember what it's like to hear someone say "nine-eleven" without thinking of hijacked planes, where I was when I first heard the news, and the consequences of that day.

There are images plastered in my mind, images like these:

I was a freshman in college in the fall of 2001. That morning, I was at my workstudy, in the Overseas Study Office, when my supervisor asked me if I had known anyone working in the World Trade Center in New York City.

"No," I said.
"An airplane just hit one of them."
"Hmmm."

"Hmm." That was my response. Given the magnitude of that day, it seems insane that it didn't immediately register that this was really bad. It wasn't until I had gone to class and was told to just go back to my dorm and watch the news that it finally hit me.

I feared this would herald a huge war, that it would require using the draft, that the lives of those I knew and loved the most would drastically change. I was lucky, because, for the most part, I was wrong. Still, every year, I grieve for those who lost their own loved ones on that Tuesday morning and I grieve for those who lost loved ones over the last 13 years as a consequence of that day. For me, a childhood class clown, Sgt Casey Byers, was killed by an IED in 2005. Two men I recently dated and still care deeply for, served in Iraq and miraculously have come home safely - one once and the other four times. I still fear for the day they may or may not have to go back, or go anywhere. I'm not as oblivious to the world as I was when I was 18 and it frightens me, even if it's not my job to be scared for them anymore.

I still haven't watched "United 93", "Flight 93", "World Trade Center", or "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close". I haven't watched "Zero Dark Thirty" or read any related books. My closest contact with anything physical from that day was when I lived in DC and got on the Metro at the Pentagon stop, and even then, all I could see was construction as they repaired that section of the building and built a memorial. I never stopped and looked too long because I didn't want any guards to think I was suspicious.

This year is actually the first year I did anything other than watch the memorial services at Ground Zero in New York City on TV.

As I drove to my parents' house this morning from my best friend's home in the Quad Cities, I found a radio station on my satellite radio that devoted 3 hours to the events leading up to and after 9/11/01. There were incredible stories, like the one of Jose Melendez-Perez, who stopped the 20th hijacker from entering the US, and possibly was the reason United 93 didn't make it to the Capitol Building. Or the one of the Stairwell B survivors - the only people to make it out of the collapsed Twin Towers alive. And the emotional interview with Aaron Brown, the CNN anchor who, for some, became the face of any related news. Did you know that day was his first day at CNN?

And now, I'm sitting at my parents computer, writing this, as I have the History Channel playing in the background - with it's entire day dedicated to remembering what happened on that day.

So today, I am really remembering, because so much has changed, both with our country and with my own life. And the one thing that I can take away from all of this, is that we, not as Americans, or patriots, or as Christians, but we, simply as human beings, need to love more and hate less. I am going to try my best to do that every day to honor those whose lives were lost on that day and in the days since.

I hope you do, too.

-Eliz