September 11th

For some reason, I can’t get my mind off of 9/11 today.  I know it is April, and that September is a long way from now, but it’s just something I have been thinking about lately.

My family was in St. Louis, MO at the time (where I was born) for my uncle’s funeral the day before.  I don’t remember the guy very much because I was in elementary school.  I do remember one fleeting moment when they were about to close the casket for the day, and all of the sudden I found a rose lying on the floor.  Being a kid, I plucked it off the ground and ran up and placed it on my uncle’s chest before they closed the casket.  Anyways, back to the story.  The next morning was the day we were leaving to drive back to Alabama.  I remember waking up in the hotel room to the noise of the national news on TV.  I look over and my parents are sitting at the foot of their bed with their eyes glued to the box.  With one glance at the TV I knew that they were watching a movie.  But why would they be watching a horror movie right after waking up?  We had to pack up after all.  I asked them what they were watching, and my mom looked at me funny and said it really was the news.  Later, as we stopped at McDonald’s to eat lunch, we watched more news channels showing the airports going into lockdown and the Arch in St. Louis, where we had just been, was closing down as well.  I guess it was a good thing we didn’t book a flight back home.

It was so hard for me, probably a seven-year-old, to understand the absolute horror of what was unfolding.  A widely used phrase is “the innocence of children”.  This is entirely true.  As a seven-year-old, I simply could not understand true hate and how destructive it can be.  As an adult, it sticks more to your mind, leaving a flashbulb memory (I believe this is the term my Psychology professor used).  It stays with you almost forever, and once you begin to think about it, it is hard to stop.  It is appalling and makes people afraid.  I think we have come together more as a country since this event, and hopefully other countries will see that freedom isn’t such a bad thing to have after all.  Oh well, I guess “haters gonna hate”.