Remembering
Image via The New York Observer
It’s been ten years since we watched the twin towers tumble and fall. Whether those years seemed long or short likely depends upon where you were, where your loved ones were, and how closely you were impacted that day.
Do you recall where you were on September 11, 2001? I remember being at school in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the fourth grade at the time. Looking back I remember the sort of nervous state of whispering adults and chatter among some students about the attacks. I find it sort of ironic that of all the students around me, I seemed to be the one unaware of what was going on. My mother picked me and my siblings up from school early that morning, as we had relatives in New York. At home I found my father watching the television screen intently. The significance of the terrifying images on the screen was not entirely lost on me as a child, but I don’t know when it was that I realized the significance of it in my family’s life. Only a year earlier, my father had worked near the world trade center, not far from the twin towers. He had in fact passed them on his way to work every morning. Had it not been for God’s providence, we don’t know what might have happened. For this and other reason my father shed many tears that day.
We spent nearly the entire day parked in front of the television. It was that day watching Peter Jennings cover that tragedy that I developed what I would later find was an appreciation for journalism and grow to admire Peter Jennings as well.
The following day our home was phone ringing off the hook as friends and family from New York called to commiserate. In years to come we would drive by the empty space that once was the home of the twin towers. It would be a sad reminder of all that was lost. I can only imagine what it must have been like for New Yorkers nearby to walk past it every day.
That day was an unforgettable one for me. I don’t know that I can begin to imagine what it was like for those who were at the sites of the incidents that day. My heart goes out to each and every individual who lost a loved one. I do not forget the men and women in the buildings who did not make it out that day. I do not forget the passersby along the streets and sidewalks whose last memory was that grievous sight. I do not forget the travelers in the planes who never made it home. And I do not forget the brave men and women who went to rescue whoever they could and lost their own loves doing so.
Ten years time does not heal those broken hearts that were broken that day, but in time, God heals. My hope is that many have found healing in his arms. My prayer is that today as we remember we do not take for granted each morning we have lived to see another day and that no matter what tomorrow brings, we are grateful for the love that no threat empty or fulfilled can take away.
The song above is dedicated to each of those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The song, Finally Home is by Mercy Me.