Ten Years Later: Remembering 9/11

Ten years ago at this exact time I was standing in my pajamas in my living room with tears streaming down my face, my hair a wreck. I was a 21-year-old newlywed and mother. My months-old infant sat in a bouncy seat, fascinated by his fists. My sobs startled him; he jolted in his seat, looked for my face, smiled and cooed, which made me cry harder.

The dichotomy of such innocence in my living room and the terror and evil unfolding on my television broke me in ways that I will never be able to explain. I wept for every single person as though they were cherished members of my own family. I wanted to reach through the television to make it stop, to catch the people jumping and falling with my hands.

As the second tower fell, the realization of what our country faced and what we would have to do as a nation hit me.

Up until this point, I had identified myself as a liberal my entire life. I had a midlife crisis when I was around 19 years-old, when I began to think that I didn’t actually believe in the principles with which I was raised. I was raised by a very big southern Democrat union family. I was indoctrinated by years of pop-culture, educational bias, and family mantra. It was the only way. I did not vote for George W. Bush. I supported Gore. Even as I began to shed the beliefs of a Democrat, one thing remained: I still felt that America had a problem with the “military complex.” The only reason people were hostile to us, I surmised, was because they were intimidated by our military. I thought Bush was representative of this and it was the reason I didn’t support him.

That belief was blown to hell on 9/11.

“Thank God George Bush is president,” I blurted out in the middle of a furious sob. My husband, who was born wearing a Reagan shirt, looked at me with wide-eyed wonderment.

How foolish I had been. How naive and hubristic I was to think that we would never have to fight on our shores. To secure peace is to prepare for war. Don’t give me any of that “neo-con” garbage. Everything I thought about the world was destroyed along with those towers.

Later that afternoon I took my infant son, numb, into the local craft store and somehow made my way to the section where they kept the Fourth of July supplies. It was a beacon of hope at the end of the aisle and there were but three left. The lines in the store wrapped around the interior perimeter of the building. Every single person had a flag. Some were like me, it was the only thing they came in to get.

The television was on all day. My husband was at work, equally numb. He called four times an hour to make sure we were OK.

As dusk settled, the smoke still poured from the rubble and took the space in the sky where twin buildings once stood. I watched it through my living room window as I hung my flag and fixed my new ground light to properly light it.

My mother called; my uncle who was on a flight headed for DC and in the air at the time of the attacks was safe.

I sat with my son in a sling on the porch that night. I stuck a tapered candle in a jar of rice and sat on my front steps until my husband pulled into the driveway. I thought about what this day meant for America. I thought about my grandfather who, as a young man, was drawn into war after Pearl Harbor and served in the Pacific theater. After everything he had sacrificed during WWII, he still saw a second attack on our country’s shores. It was a brave new world. Freedom wasn’t a one time payment. It was a lifetime of privileged vigilance. I understood this now.

From those ashes came a hardened American resolve. Then, sometime a few years later, we slipped into politically correct apathy. Some of us began to believe that lying prostrate before our enemies would pacify their desire to kill us for being simply who we are. In the years since we still haven’t replaced the buildings; Mark Steyn has a brilliant chapter on this in America Alone.

In the years since, I abdicated my side of the aisle for the other side. Many things contributed to my political awakening but 9/11 tempered my newfound conservatism.

Ten years later that baby is a young boy.

Ten years later I still have that same flag, in addition to many more.

Ten years later and the pain and fury is still as raw as day it happened.

Ten years later and I have not forgotten. I will not allow you to forget, or them to forget, or anyone to forget.

Ten years later and we have not yet begun to fight.

We pray for all: those who felt loss from all three attacks, those whose courage overwhelmed their fear to create heroes, those who gave aid. God bless America.