Never Forget

I will never be able to know how terrifying it must have been to be in New York or Washington DC. I know half a country away it was terrifying, I can't even begin to imagine what it was like to be that close.

By the time I turned on the Today Show that morning to get ready for school (I was in college), the first plane had already hit. I tuned half an ear in while I curled my hair. I watched the second plane hit from the mirror. Then the Pentagon. I remember people being afraid that Colorado was a target. Because of Rocky Flats and NORAD. 

Mostly I remember no planes. I walked into the two classes I had before they closed the campus and nothing was taught that day. We watched the coverage in horror. The sadness we all felt when the towers collapsed. We knew this took so many innocent lives. The fear about what was next. The strange silence in the skies. It was all so surreal. And a day that has been forever burned into the memory of this country. 

Today, fourteen years later I say a prayer. For those who lost their lives, both on that day and in the days after to illnesses they wouldn't have but for being there that day. I pray for the heroes that were lost and that must live every day carrying what they saw and experienced there. For the families that have picked up the pieces and moved forward. And for the country that banded together.