Remembering September 11th

What I remember from the day that changed how I viewed myself and my country.

I remember September 11th, 2001, more clearly than nearly any day in my adolescence.

I was in middle school, just getting used to my new school and house, and sitting in class filling out a worksheet when an announcement came on the PA for the teachers to turn on the news.

Everything, everyone just froze.

My social studies teacher, tried to keep us calm, even though I could see the panic in her face.

I had never seen a true act of aggression in my life, and here were two iconic landmarks I had heard and seen in countless photos and movies in New York in flames, then news broke about the Pentagon.

I couldn't believe it. It had to be a hoax. Stuff like that only happened in movies.

Then the first tower fell, and I could feel my heart fall with it. I knew right there, even as a kid, a lot of people had just been killed. I knew something had been done that could never be undone. A wound deeper in my spirit than ever I had felt.

I remember this intense need to go home. To know that my mom and dad were ok. We lived in Texas, so far away from what had happened, that it was silly to think that they were not ok. But I was scared. I had to know. I went to the principals office and begged them to call my mom. And she came.

We sat on our couch at home all day watching the news, watching the chaos, watching the news repeat the footage of the towers falling over and over, dust and debris clouds washing through the streets, people screaming, crying, and first responders rushing into the unknown to try to save just one more life.

I remember thinking, we had to find out who did this, who senselessly took all these lives. I wouldn't understand the reason someone would even think about doing this till much later.

Things didn’t change until I saw President Bush's speech later that day. I remember actually listening to what a a politician said for the first time. I remember measuring each word, trying to understand the weight of what he said. I felt, I think for the first time in my life, true pride in our nation, a true respect and belief in the United States in a way I never could have understood before. The patriotism that can ever truly manifest and grow when you realize your homeland is under threat.

Thankfully I wasn’t the only one. The next few months, I constantly watched the news, and saw a massive swell of love, support, and patriotism that I had never seen before, and rarely have since. We spoke in one voice after that day. We were one America, not split over our petty differences. The indominable spirit of America, arrested so long before, and since, roared into the night that we would not bow down to terror, we would not endure this violence, we would not suffer an attack like this again.

We need to remember that moment. We need to remember that feeling. That power to put aside rivalries and the past, and work together again, now more than ever.

No matter what side of the aisle you stand, no matter how far you have strayed, if you believe in America, in Freedom and the Pursuit of Happiness, I want you to know I support you. I support you not as a man, not as what I look like, not as the party I support, I stand for you as an American. I want to believe we can stand up together again and wash away the sound and fury of yesterday.

Let us rise again, together.