Facebook feeds are full of "Remember 9/11", "Honor the victims", so on and so forth. Someone wrote, "11 years, the memory is more clear than some just a few months ago"...
11 years ago I sat on the bus on the way to Eisenhower Jr High, I was an 8th grader and I was sitting next to my best friend, Laura. She ran late to the bus again and was a bit frazzled. Her dad was in downtown Chicago that day. She turned to me while the bus was driving down Bode Road, going east, "I have a feeling something really bad is going to happen today." I remember laughing, "Oh Laura..." Little did we both know that at the end of the day her suspicions would be correct.
I remember being in history class and a friend came up to before class, "A plane just crashed in the world trade center and (making her hand crash down on the desk) the building collapsed." I laughed. The gestures she was using were funny to me. I didn't know what the trade towers were. I didn't know thousands of people worked there. I didn't know it was a commercial airplane. My friend was laughing too. We heard rumors and the class was in an uproar.
My teacher that period turned on the T.V. There it was as my friend had shown with her hand. The building stood and slammed into the ground. Laughing, obviously silenced. The true meaning of planes crashing into these buildings was revealed. The classroom was probably quieter than when we all took tests; the only sound was the T.V. spreading the horrible news of the events that were taking place.
I think for all of us who were alive this day will remember this day. What I most remember after was the unity that came about. People reached out to one another. For one moment in time the United States of America was truly united. In spite of tragedy, unity emerged. We don't fully understand evil in the world, but it does exist and we can only look to God to find comfort and hope for the future.
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