Like all days that go on to shatter reality, September 11, 2001, started out deceptively innocent.
I woke up. I took a shower. I dressed for work. I turned on the news to see a live picture of the World Trade Center in New York City, with smoke billowing out of one of the towers. The caption said a plane struck it.
While that was terrible enough on its own, it wasn't until I got to work that I started to understand the full extent of what was going on. The scant handful of customers who came in all carried rumors of what was happening in the outside world. Some were true; others, mere hearsay. It felt like Armageddon was unfolding right before our eyes. I ran to the back room every break to check the television for the latest updates. It was an unreal nightmare; one which has never ended.
At the time, I was dating a girl from the African country of Uganda. When I saw her, she hugged me and said words I will never forget, because they sent a chill down my spine: “Now it's here in your country.” Her family fled a military regime to find a better life here, only to discover terrorism had reached our shores as well. (In hindsight, dating 23-year-old me probably wasn’t her greatest life choice, either.)
Every generation has a date that lives in infamy. For mine, it’s 9/11/01. It sounds strange now that I know so many people who weren't alive then… how do you explain to a younger person there was a day when everything seemed to fall silent? Smartphones weren't around back then. Social media was still in its infancy. All we had was 24-hour news coverage on literally every channel; including cable.
I lost much of my remaining childhood wonder and innocence that day. It has taken me a long time to get some of it back, but it has come at the expense of living largely in my own head. Granted, this is great for writing stories or imagining a better reality, but it isn’t so great for living here, in the real world.
That day and the day my sister died were two very potent days in the forging of me, as I now stand (well, sit) before you. I have resolved to be the best me, and to make the world in my immediate vicinity as beautiful and magical a place as I am able, because evil – real, actual evil – can change the world in a handful of seconds.
We need to shine as much light as we possibly can.
