11 years

In the moments during and after the attacks of September 11th, we were forever changed as a nation, as citizens and as individuals.

When I talk about this day and its events, or watch news coverage it brings back the confusion, fear, and helplessness that I felt to such a degree I remember it to be almost crippling.

For the first time in our nations history we saw an attack of great magnitude unfold right before our eyes, we saw the second plane hit on live television. It is such a personal experience, where you were and what you were doing when the planes collided with the towers, when they collapsed, when the pentagon was hit and when the passengers and crew lost their lives in Shanksville, PA.

I remember watching the news scared and also confused, I didn't get it we were the good guys, we come in and save the day, why would some one do this? I so badly wanted John Wayne to appear with his troops and make the world right again.

 As he towers once blazing, started to crumble, you knew in the few seconds it took for these Juggernauts to reduce to rubble that thousands of souls were lost. We were lost.

That thick dust filled the streets, engulfed sky scrapers, hunted down the fleeing natives, reaching for them, pulling them in to its unknown. The tendrils of dust reached the sky and coiled out to the far corners of this nation. We all could feel it as if we were running those streets, we gasped for air, we could feel the debris on our skin.

Once the dust lifted, who was left looked like ghosts, it was eerily too fitting.

After watching news coverage all day I remember thinking how I got to kiss my mom good night and tell her I love her, and how I prayed the ones lost did too. I so hoped that before they left that day that they kissed their husbands, wives and children and said I love you to each one. I can remember thinking this is it. The sun   can't rise tomorrow, that would mean the start of a new day when we have had barely enough time to process what happened, people are missing, questions aren't answered.

But it did, and we did what Americans do, we reached in to the smoldering rubble and pulled one another up.

The sun has risen and set on this day 11 times since that morning and it will continue, and we will always remember.