Today is 9/11. Ten years ago, a worldwide tragedy occurred. Thousands of people today are still crying the dead of their loved ones. Some people may think it's inappropriate to write about this. It's okay, everyone has different opinions. Nut the things is, I have to tell you what I remember from that day or I'll go crazy. So here it is:
The whole episode is blurry in my mind. I remember fragments. My mom braiding my hair for school while watching the news, a daily tradition. Dropping my sister and me off at school across the street. Then, picking us up an hour later with tears in her eyes. I remember that because she never cries. We got home and she hugged us while she continued watching the news. I was too little, so I couldn't understand what was going on. After the second tower fell, she took us to the supermarket. "But mommy I want to go to school" I told her. She just shook her head and bought our favorite cereals, milk and food we could store. The kind of things you have to send when a country suffers from an earthquake or something like that. Only years later she told me that she feared that World War III was starting. When we got home she received a phone call from our aunt. Our uncle Richard had been working in one of the offices next to the second tower. She didn’t know if he was okay, or where was he. Not all of the phones were working because the whole world was calling NYC and everyone wanted to know if their loved ones were alive. Fortunately, my uncle was fine. Not perfect, but alive. The next time we saw him, he told us what’d happened. He was walking down the street because he saw the first plane fly right next to his office and crash against the first tower. He was heading towards there to see if he could help when he saw the other airplane fly above his head and crash against the second tower. He stayed there watching the scene, trying to make sense of what just had happened. Everything was happening too fast. The first tower fell. Everything was filled with the blare of the sirens coming from the fire trucks, the roaring sound the tower caused while it fell, people screaming. He couldn’t see a thing because of all the dust. He miraculously found a car and rolled under it, covered his mouth and his nose and waited. “How can I save someone if I can’t even save myself?” he thought, over and over again. A while later, paramedics found him and helped him. He was okay.
Selfish, or not, I’m thankful that God gave him another chance. Not everyone had one. My prayers are with the people who lost their loved ones. For the ones we remember today. Earlier this day, I was watching a video of the event on Youtube while tears ran down my face. I saw a comment that left me furious and sad at the same time. “I’ve been laughing about this for the last 10 years.” Of course I replied to it. I’m not going to repeat the things I said, but I’m sure that I told him that there were innocent people there. That no one deserved to die. His reply? “Americans deserved that and more.” I replied. And I’ll pray for humanity too, because the world doesn’t deserve to have people like that. People like that were the ones who caused the deaths of thousands of people. Brave and innocent people.
We will never forget you NYC! Our prayers are for you!
