Today

It’s so strange for me to think that Lucy will never know a world where 9/11 is just another day on the calendar. That she’ll never understand the freedom of thinking that we are so far away (physically, politically, socially) from those who disagree with our way of life that they would never be able to harm us. To her, the attacks on September 11 will seem like the Kennedy assassination or the attack on Pearl Harbor. It will be a chapter in her history book.

I don’t like to write too much on this day because it seems cheap. Lazy. Never enough. I didn’t lose anyone close to me on that day, so who am I to talk about it? I was only 18 when the two planes slammed into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon and yet another into field in Pennsylvania and changed everything I thought about the world. Up until then, the biggest world events for my generation were the killings at Columbine High School and the murder of Tupac (seriously, I remember a journalism class in 2000 where these were the discussion topics). I always felt I was was pretty well informed, I was even taking two classes on Islam that semester. The year before I had befriended a Muslim man and even considered converting. To me it was, and still is, a deeply spiritual and wonderful religion. I was amazed at the similarities to my own Catholic upbringing, and how much I felt I could relate to it’s teachings. I had never expected what would happen that day. Who could have?

So, today I hope we can all put aside our arguments, our political wars, our disagreements, and remember those who died on that day. Those people who, on the day I sat in my warm sorority room, glued to the TV, were dying in those towers. Those who ran in to save others. Those who sat on doomed airplanes. Those who fought back. Take a minute today, despite what you may think about the wars we’re fighting now, and pray for them. I’m sure they’d do the same for you.

And someday, I hope Lucy can once again live in a world a bit more naive, so much so that an attack like this is unfathomable. I hope she can grow up being proud to be an American and really understand what it stands for. Hope. Love. Independence. Freedom. And I hope this world will welcome her with open arms.