23 years ago several planes were intentionally run into the World Trade Center Towers in New York, into the Pentagon in Virginia, and a Pennsylvania field. The field wasn’t intentional, but brave heroes put it down before it could crash into Washington D.C. It was a day the world stopped and millions of lives were changed.
It’s wild for me to think that it was 23 years ago. I’m sure to some people, it still feels like yesterday. I remember what I was doing that day. I was in catholic elementary school. Our classes stopped and we were all ushered to the church. They said something happened and, being so young, I didn’t quite understand it. Yet, we were all asked to pray. I remember praying, “God, I don’t know what’s going on, but You do. Please be there for the people who need you and help where Your help is needed.”
That night and days after, you see the images on the News. As a kid, you know buildings are only supposed to smoke on TV shows, not the News, and when people jump out of a building, a hero is supposed to catch them.
I can’t say I fully understand what happened that day. Why all that senseless violence happened, but I remember how it connected everyone. People were kinder after those towers fell because we were all burdened with this horrible tragedy. You bring up 9/11 and suddenly people who were enemies were unified by grief, anger, and the agreement that no one deserved the fate 9/11 wrought upon thousands of people.
Years later, my history teacher makes the comment that the students coming through his classroom are getting younger and younger that not a lot of people remember 9/11 or were even born when it happened. After 23 years, there’s plenty of young people who weren’t around yet. I may not have been impacted like a lot of people, but I remember, and I’ll continue to remember.
And, I’ll continue praying nothing like that ever happens again.
nikki diekemper 