I remember

I remember a day in november of 2000.  I was on a trip in New York City.  I was there with some members of my parents church on a retreat.  It was my first time ever in NYC.

I was cautious.  I had never been anywhere so big, or noisy, or anywhere so likely to be mugged (or so I thought in my head).  I held my purse extra close and tried not to get separated from my group.  We visited different places, and rode in taxicabs.  It was exciting.

I distinctly remember on the morning of November 3, 2000.  We were scheduled to go up into to the World Trade Center and see NYC from the top.  These towers were the tallest, after all.  I remember standing at the bottom and looking up, trying to see just how far up we were going, and feeling dizzy because they were so incredibly tall.  We went inside and got our tickets.  $9.00 is what it cost to go up to the observatory deck.  We rode the elevator up to the top and got out.  We were able to actually stand on the roof. Outside.  I believe we were standing on the one without the needle.  I could see the other tower just next to us. And all of NYC.  It was breathtaking.  Amazing.  Nothing like it.  It felt like you could see the whole world from up there.

After a while we went back down to leave.  I remember walking along the side of the building and letting my hand drag along the rough stone of the side of the building.  I remember thinking that the vertical ridges that went all the way up the sides of both towers made them look taller.  As if they really needed to look taller than they already were.  It was the first and only time I ever touched those buildings.  I had no idea that in 10 short months the place where i was standing would be labeled "ground zero" and that so many lives would be lost there.  I had no idea that the building I was touching would change this country forever and effect so many lives all over the world.

I can remember exactly where I was on that day in September of 2001.  I remember what I was doing. In fact I could give you an hour by hour breakdown of the whole day from memory.  I sure most people in my generation also remember the day vividly.  It seems like the last few generations have a moment like this.  Im sure if you asked the baby boomers they could tell you where they were when Kennedy was shot.  And their parents could tell you where they were when they heard the news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.  It seems to be the plague of every generation.  It is sad.  And so unfortunate that it takes so much loss for us to remember how to unite.  But we do.  Every time.  And like any trial, personal, community-wide, national, or international, it gives us as people a reminder of what to be grateful for.

Sometimes I wonder about the "what ifs".  What if we had taken our retreat 10 months later? What if I had been standing on top of that building and saw a plane in the distance coming our way? What if I had been on top and watched as that plane slammed its way through the middle of that building? What would I have thought? How would I have acted? Would I have lived through that day? Or what if I had been nearby and watched first hand as people jumped out of the windows to certain death because there was no other way down?  Its hard to imagine.  And Im glad that I was not actually there.  But having been at that building and seen and touched it makes this day a little more real for me.  It makes it something that not just happened to someone else, but as Americans, it happened to US.

Although both of those days are sad memories for me, I can be grateful for them too.