on this day of remembrance...

{i know, i know. everyone's posting.
but i couldn't let this day pass without putting in my two cents as well, and seeing as i didn't blog much or even journal, i need some documentation of my feelings}

10 years ago i was 13 years old, just a few weeks into my freshman year of high school.
i was in late seminary, which started at 6:30. sis. mathews used to drive me and a bunch of boys to school after seminary was over.
at 6:30 everything had already happened. i had no knowledge of those events, of how our country was just changed.
i showed up for school, met my friends by our lockers like normal. and then i heard the news: a plane crashed into the twin towers in new york city.
at 13, i had no idea what that meant. i didn't understand the significance of those two buildings. i didn't know what terrorism was. i barely understood how our government worked.
a friend of mine started panicking, claiming that our country was going to fall apart, because those two buildings, those "twin towers" were the economic center. they had collapsed, and with it, everything our country had.
even as a 13 year old, with little to no knowledge of governments, i thought that claim was a little far-fetched. i mean, this couldn't possibly be the end of the world, right?
not exactly, but it was the end of the world as i knew it.
the world changed that day. people became less tolerant, more paranoid. people stopped trusting each other. there was friction amongst nations. politics was discussed more often, and more openly.
there was talk of reinstating the draft, of forcing young men to fight.
we lost a lot of good people that day. people that didn't deserve to lose their lives. people who fought for their right to live, all the way until the end.
we lost good people later on, during the war. Anthony, you're always in our hearts.

re-watching the footage of the towers burning and the second plane crashing into the south tower, it's almost like watching it for the first time. as i've gotten older, i've learned more about that day, understood more of what happened, and have seen the repercussions of that day.
i saw the people of this great nation come together, united as one, and then fall apart as the war continued. let us remember the unity we felt that day, and despite our differences, despite our differing opinions, let us stand together, united, once again, to show the world how we can come back from a tragedy like that, that terrorism will not keep us down. let us live our lives for the people who lost theirs fighting, show them that their sacrifice was and will be worth it.

we may not always agree, or see eye to eye, but we are all Americans. let us never forget that.