Remembrance

So, I visited the 9/11 Memorial today.

I didn't even make it to the memorial before I started tearing up.

We had to pick up our passes at the memorial preview site where there were lots of pictures and descriptions and a video playing.

After, we went and stood in the very long line to get into the Memorial.

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Sometime, during my childhood, I learned about New York City. I must have been somewhere between six and eight years old. I know it was after I moved to Texas but before I really started thinking about what was happening in the world.

My brother told me of all the great things that existed in New York City and I became fixated on one thing only: The Twin Towers. I don't know why. I wasn't particularly interested in architecture, but perhaps the knowledge that two identical towers were the tallest buildings in what seemed the greatest city in the world, simply fascinated me.

As a child, I would frequently talk about the places I wanted to visit. On my short list was the Twin Towers. I wanted to see Manhattan in general, but specifically, I wanted to go up in one of those towers.

My childhood passed in a passing manner and I visited many places in the United States and even went to Niagara Falls, Canada, but I never went to New York City.

When I became an adult and got married, I would tell my husband of the places I wanted to go. Still on my short list was New York City and specifically, The Twin Towers.

Then came that day.

I was just past 22 years old. My husband and I were in downtown San Antonio with our seven-year-old daughter on our way to check out a house we wanted to rent. We had just missed our bus transfer and wandered into the Payless Shoe Source to get out of the sun. The girls inside were listening to the radio.

I heard the word, "Bomb."
I turned toward the cash registers and said to the girls, "Bomb?! Where? What's going on?"
One girl replied, "There's been a bomb threat at Ingram Park Mall and another at City Hall."
"What?! What's going on?"
The second girl said, "Oh, didn't you hear? The World Trade Towers were bombed this morning. They've fallen. There's bomb threats all over the city...."

She continued speaking, but I was no longer listening. My head swam and I fell backwards. Fortunately there was a bench behind me and I only ended up plopping onto it really hard.

My husband continued talking to the girls and my daughter said, "Mommy? Mommy, what's wrong?"

"They're gone, baby. The Towers, they're gone. They're gone. I didn't see the Towers and they're gone."

"What Towers, Mommy?"

At that point, I regained my faculties enough to explain to her which towers I meant (I had wanted to see them so much, I had told her all about them) as I walked her and my husband out of the store. I turned to my husband and said, "Okay, worse case scenario, they say terrorists, I say the whole world could possibly be going to shit. Let's go home, grab some stuff and head to my mom's, just to see what this looks like. If the world goes to shit, we'll be 60 miles from the nearest city, if it doesn't, we'll go home after a day or two."

And so we did. Watching news footage everywhere we stopped that showed the planes, the towers, the people, the screaming, the...

Well, you get the idea, you probably experienced it, too. If you didn't, I'm sure you can look it up somewhere.

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Needless to say, I've spent a lot of time crying today. I've got other reasons to cry and perhaps, this just caused me to overflow.

Walking through the Memorial and feeling the enormity of it all...

At lunch after, the kids strike up a conversation, but none of them had experienced it as adults. None of them saw the footage of people digging through rubble, heard the sounds from the footage of the time from when the towers were hit until they fell...I wasn't even there in person. I didn't know anyone who was in either of the towers or on any of the flights. I did have a friend who lived in Battery City and had a few accounts from her before she was evacuated. But that's as close as I got.

And still I'm struck. Touched. Long after the event, what happened that day still affects me, the loss of all those lives and the courage exhibited during and after by individuals who had the choice to be courageous or not.

And I find myself needing to do something to honor all of those people.

And I realize that my answer is in my story of the Towers.

I was 22 when the Towers fell. I was four years outside of childhood, wherein I could have begun living the dreams I dreamt as a child and had not. I could have seen them before they fell.

And this is my resolve: In honor of all those who had that choice taken away from them, I will live my dreams. I will not be held back by any notions of "I can't" or "It's too hard."

I am alive. Therefore I can.