Remembering...

 Five years later and still I cannot comprehend the scope of what happened in New York, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. My family and I went to New York in December of 2001, the closest I ever came to understanding the magnitude of the events of that day. Pieces of the twin towers still stood, eerie reminders of our nation's devastation just three months earlier.

I didn't lose anyone close to me. My parents' neighbor and the father of my brother's friend was killed in one of the towers. But I still cry every year on this day. I still cry every time I hear Five for Fighting's "Superman (it's not easy)" - or is that the other way around? That song became embedded in my heart as the anthem for 9/11. I still cry every single day that I look up in the sky and see a beautiful clear blue sky - one of my strongest memories of 9/11. The sky was the purest shade of blue, not a cloud to be seen.

I just needed to remember today. I couldn't turn away from the coverage five years ago, but this morning I had to. I have a five year old who can understand death and destruction and I'd rather that he didn't just yet. He was four months old then and I didn't have to explain anything. I could take all the time I needed to wrap my brain around it. Five years later and I haven't quite gotten there yet.

I'm curious to learn how schools and history books will see this. It rather boggles my mind what significant history that really was. Honestly, I think it was the first truly important piece of history that I witnessed. I know lots of history has occurred in the past thirty years, but 9/11 is something unique. Like JFK's assasination to my parents's generation - "Where were you when...?" Prior to this, the best my generation could do was the Challenger (I still gasp every time I see footage of it).

Anyway...I remember.