I was debating with myself whether to do a blog on this anniversary of 9/11. Remembrances will be everywhere today, on tv and in all aspects of the media. However, I decided to do this if for anything but therapy for myself.

Everybody knows where they were when this horrific succession of events began. Myself, like many were at work, beginning the events of the day. It all happened so fast that no one knew what to make of it. I was planning to see my son play a soccer game after work at a school nearby. But then everything began to unfold. Panic ensued about whether our city or state would be next. Our employer closed early, as did most others, along with schools. Highways were clogged with people rushing to get their children or just home to see for themselves the horror which had occurred.

I for one was glued to the television for hours and days forward. I cried. I kept my kids near, just trying to make sense of it all. There was no sense to any of it. The irony was I had already taken off the next day 9/12. That is my husband’s birthday. What was going to be a low-key celebration, became a non-existent one, by our choice. We decided to put it off somewhat, while still digesting the events of the day before. It just seemed endless.

The picture you see attached to this blog today was taken by our son about a year before the attacks. He along with classmates went on a field trip to New York. He snapped this photo from the Staten Island Ferry. It has been up on our refrigerator for 15 years! It is a reminder of how things can change in an instant, and we all take too much for granted.

People came together for a short time back then. Everyone’s prejudices were put aside and we stood as one. However, that has changed. We are once again complacent and self-centered, in our own worlds. All we care about is what we can get and how fast we can get it. I have said that I would prefer to stay away from politics. Well, I am. This is about citizens of a country, who once again think nothing will ever happen to them.

I’m not advertising that we become paranoid, but look at the events around the world and in our own country within the last few years. All I’m saying is folks, wake the hell up. We don’t live on a little island, away from all the bad stuff. It’s about all of us as a country. Remember all of those whose lives were lost then, and those whose lives have been lost in recent years to the same extremists.

Pray today for those lost back on 9/11! Remember the lives cut short! Stand proud though that we as a country can fight anything!