For a child waiting on something it is forever. For most adults it is just the blink of an eye, a measure of time that passes without much notice except on the calendar. I can rarely remember on any given day exactly what I was doing 18 months ago on that date. There are a few days in my life however that I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing on that day and at that moment, I think most people have those memories. September 11, 2001 is one of those days, one of those moments. .
I can not summon up thoughts of events that took place during the days preceding the 11th, but I have not forgotten a moment since. I ponder about those people who lost those most dear to them on that day, and I know that they remember every second of the last time they were with that person. It still disquiets me that within the span of just a few hours so much about my world could transformed so profusely. In some ways my compassion has grown deeper, but with that has come the capacity to hate as I have never known before. .
They say time heals all wounds, and I suppose in some ways 18 months has aided the healing of the wounds. After 18 months I still can't understand why they did these things or how a country could be so hated, and if I was aware or understood would it really make a difference? Would it help me to forget the pain, the fear, the suffering or the helplessness I felt that day, that America felt that day and every day since? Some things you can never forget, some you never want to forget no matter how horrendous they are. .
The only thing I am certain of is that a group consisting largely of exceptionally evil folk for reasons I can't comprehend, went to America and attacked their people, innocent people. They have shown the lengths they are willing to go, to obliterate everything that the Americans esteem, to tear down a way of life made possible by the fighting and dying of thousands of men and women in the last two-hundred and twenty-five years.