9/11

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20 years ago today was the day the shook the US. I would be remiss to skip over this day in history. It's asked year after year "do you remember where you were?" A famous country singer Alan Jackson even has a song about it "Do you remember where you were when the world stopped turning?" Almost everyone alive old enough to remember does remember. I think the question isn't where were you but what was going through your mind? I couldn't tell you what happened before that moment but I can tell you that moment and everything that happened after. I just remember being scared. I remember the eery quietness all around us as there was no air traffic. It was such a terrifying day. No one knew what it meant or why it was happening. Most of us thought it was just a terrible plane crash at first until the second plane struck. What gets to me is there were some people cheering as this happened. They were happy a bunch of victims were dead. People who had nothing to do with what happened. There's this idea that Americans can somehow control their government and I promise you we don't not entirely. We are kept from so many things. We do our best to vote for the right people but ultimately we don't have all of the facts. I will never cheer for the death of innocent people. What's going on now in Afghanistan sickens me. There's a saying that there is no real winner in war. War is horrible I'm not saying it's not necessary sometimes. I don't know the answer to that. If problems could be solved with words life would be easier. I don't like the pain or suffering of others who get caught in the middle no matter the circumstance I'll never cheer over people losing their lives so the idea that others did really sickens me. The bright side what little one there is, is that our nation came together for the first time in a long time and it has been a long time since. People helped their fellow man. Strangers helped strangers and I promise you they didn't stop to first ask their political party or their religion. None of it mattered at that time and it shouldn't now but here we are. 20 years later and I'm ashamed of what we have become. We lost so many people that day and I think about the sacrifices others made not just during that day but for every minute after. I don't want those sacrifices to be in vain but in so many ways it seems they are. I'm not saying people don't care anymore they do but I feel like in this fight we are often in with others about what is right and what is not we often forget the bigger picture. I was explaining 9/11 to my son last night and I was telling him how fortunate he is. The US isn't perfect and we have a lot of issues but he can at least practice his own religion and do everyday things he does without the fear of being killed or jailed for it and that in itself is a right we take for granted every day. If others talked about their government the way we often do they'd be killed or jailed. We have the ability to act like idiots on the internet and speak horribly and not have to worry the police will be knocking on our door so long as we don't make threats. We need to be grateful for what we do have and not just complain about what we don't. We live in a less than perfect country without free healthcare and where it often feels like we are suffocating because of how horrible our government is ran sometimes but we are still free and that's so much better than some countries. I'm not saying we can't complain to make some things right or that we aren't allowed to ever feel bad about how some things are but what I am saying is days like today put things into perspective for me. Maybe we aren't the greatest country in the world anymore but we sure have it a lot better than we could have it. I get to thinking lately about how no one in our schools now (not including college) were alive during 9/11. I was only in the 9th grade and I just remember feeling lost and afraid. I didn't understand what it even meant for a bit. I just remember how lost everyone was. Something big like that happens and you often try to wrap your head around it. It really isn't about where we were but about everything that happened after. It was about how we suddenly felt about our fellow neighbor. It was about how we could help and how for a brief moment in time we didn't argue but came together. That's what I try to remember about that day. Where I was doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things but I'll never forget the shock and horror of that day.