My recall of the day is foggy at best. Little did I know that on that sunny day, the trajectory of the life I might have known was changed forever. I was in my first week of second grade when the teacher sat everyone down and told us that there was a plane crash and that we shouldn't worry about it. Next thing I knew, my mom had rushed into the school, whisked my brother and me home, and held on to us for dear life. My dad was on a business trip in Eugene, Oregon, desperate to get home but stranded despite his best efforts.
September 11, 2001 radically altered everything about American life: Government, national security, journalism, pop culture, domestic, foreign, and ethnic relations, and perhaps most dramatically, national morale. It's strange to realize that my generation has been defined by the changes that 9/11 brought upon us. I don't remember a time when there weren't lockdown drills at school. I don't remember going to the airport without full-body scans. I don't remember a time when terrorism wasn't a credible threat to our nation's safety. Indeed, September 11th is a day marked by sacrifice - sacrificed lives, and sacrificed freedoms. We don't forget.
And yet - life marches on. Through pain, we cope. We worry, but we carry on. We don't forget those who gave everything; we carry them in our hearts each day.
Many people gathered at O'Hara this morning to celebrate a memorial Mass for those who died in the 9/11 terrorist attack. As a member of the O'Hara choir, I was one of those people. Though I wasn't personally affected by 9/11 and can hardly even imagine the pain of those who were, I found something just and fitting about gathering and paying tribute to the heroes of September 11th. Today, we revived their memories - their lives, their choices, their families, and their sacrifices - in a special way.
We might not see them today, but they are still with us. We haven't forgotten them, and we won't.
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