Today is 9/11. I had Just turned 18 years old a few days before. I was in college. I have never liked waking up to a standard alarm noise. It wakes me up too suddenly, so at the time I woke up to a clock radio (it was purple with green buttons) tuned to my favorite Radio Show: the New guys on 101.5. I wanna say they were running a competition to win a new car, it should have been the end of it.
But this time the voices on the radio were talking about something very different. A plane had just crashed. It wasn’t a joke. They promised. Please, turn on your TV. I had to be up much earlier than the rest of my family to be to my first class on time (and to get a half decent parking spot). So I woke up the house as…
I turned on the TV, to the news. I saw two towers, one of which had black smoke billowing out of it. Just as my freshly awake brain realized what I was seeing, a 2nd plane slid into the other tower. Shock.
I watched for another 20 minutes. But I HAD to be to school. No shower, no breakfast. I got to school. My first teacher, refused to turn on the TV, Engineering class. He said he was there to teach, not watch the news. 90% of the class walked out. I sat there numb. I had no idea what happened in class that day beyond that.
I went to my next class. The teacher was crying. She had family in NYC. She had the news on. we were all quiet and we watched.
I don’t remember much after that of that day. It was one of the worst days in the lives of us all. For the lives that were lost. The freedoms we gave up, the hate that was festered, and the wars that it started.
God Gave us two great commandments –
Love God. Not love only the Christian god, or the Muslim god, or the Jewish god. Love God. With all thy heart, soul, and mind. Whom ever that God is. Love him.
Love thy neighbor, as thyself. maybe we do not love ourselves enough to be able to love each other the way we need to. and if that is the case, we need to change.
-AIC