9/11

I remember everything. I was 7. My mom woke me up abruptly, perhaps to get ready for school, I thought. But it was way too early, roughly around 6 am. She led me to the living room where she was watching tv. First image I saw was a building on fire. I couldn't quite make out what I was looking at. It wasn't until I knew that those were the Twin Towers and I saw them collapse.

On my trip to New York in 2011, I was very frantic because I knew I was going to the some memorials and the site itself. This was already a touchy subject for me over the years so I couldn't bear the thought of seeing it for myself. Around the third day of my trip, we went to lower Manhattan. The first visit was a church that was probably between 50 feet away for the construction zone (where the towers were) and it was set up as a memorial. I already got chills before walking inside. There was a lot of quietness inside, I saw a huge banner that said "WE LOVE NEW YORK" and then I saw something disturbing. It was a firefighter uniform and it was demolished. Debris covered the entire uniform and the boots looked burned and torn out. I stood there probably longer than I should've, just staring at this, I could only imagine what this firefighter went thru. It was the only vivid image that I got out of that church, everything else was a blur.

We walked across the street to another memorial and there was pictures, books, magazines about the event. Of course I start crying. We then started to walk next to the construction site and I got chills. I looked up to only imagine the Twin Towers hovering over me. Then come to the realization that a lot of people were standing where I was when it was all happening. And, of course running away from where I was standing when the towers collapsed.

It was a memorable visit, one that I won't forget, not forget how I was feeling during the entire time. Today marks the 12th anniversary since the attacks in 2001 and I remember everything and I will never forget.