At about 8:50AM, on 9/11/01, our school counselor came into my office and told me that one of the World Trade Center Twin Towers had been hit by an airplane and terrorism was suspected. I immediately went to our High School classroom and asked the teacher if we could turn on the TV. The picture of the tower on fire was so devastatingly sad. Several minutes later, while watching, the second tower was hit!!!! The students were shell-shocked to the point of disbelief. Staff was hauntingly quiet. I remember watching, not sure I was processing, and praying to God this was someones idea of a sick joke and the newsmen would come on any minute and tell us the TV stations had been hacked and the film was photo shopped. When that didn't happen, and all TV stations were reporting the same news, we all became mesmerized by the images. Book learning was not going on at this time, but actual history lessons were taking place. Later in the morning, the entire school assembled outside to Pledge Allegiance and sing God Bless America. During both, people were solemn, tears in their eyes, and others (myself included) couldn't stop the tears rolling down their devastated faces. All in all, we came together not only as a nation, but as a school. Watching the towers implode on TV and seeing the people jump to their deaths from the top of the towers took its toll on everyone impacted. The images became nightmares for some, and death reports for others.
It is now the tenth Anniversary of 9/11/01 and I have been watching the memorials, the minute-by-minute replay of actual footage, listening to the interviews by survivors, and basically, just reliving the horror that all the victims and their families felt ten year ago today. It is so overwhelming, as I am so empathetic to the pain of other people (it's nothing I do, God gave me this gift) that I actually feel like I know these people personally... I have watched the movie, Flight 93 at least twice this week, and every single time, I sob with the passengers and their families. How unselfishly brave all those passengers were to save complete strangers in the USA. I wonder how many of us would have done the same as Todd, Jeremy, Elizabeth, (just to mention a few), and the flight crew. I like to believe and hope that most of us would be as selfless and loyal to want to save many more lives enough to sacrifice our own to keep the world a safer place.
Watching the memorial events today has definitely cleared my tear ducts and sinus passages, but has also made me realize that God is good. As I look to the Heaven's today of all days, I SMILE and thank him for my wonderful life in America...God will continue to Bless all the victims of 9/11/01, as well as the people of the United States.
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