This post is not my usual happy smiley posts. This is a subject that reached out to millions, touched the lives of millions, even those of us (like myself) who were at the time so young, and so small, and so far away from it all. I'm sure those of you reading will already have guessed what I'm talking about, but I'll say it anyway:
Tomorrow, 11th September 2011, is the tenth anniversary of the day when the twin towers in New York were hit by terrorist bombers, destroying literally millions of lives.
I feel I would be neglecting my duty as a caring human being if I didn't put up a post in honor of those wonderful people, who lost their lives trying to save others. Obviously I'm speaking of the emergency services, the policemen, the firemen, the paramedics, all did fabulously. But also civilians helping other people in need, and being pulled together through what I certainly regard as one of the worst and biggest travesties of the 20th century.
I was 7 years old when the towers were hit in 2001. We'd just started a new term. I remember my mother coming to pick me up from school, I noted the soberness on the faces of all of the adults around me, they spoke in hushed voices, they looked upset, and something didn't feel right. My mother told me that the twin towers in America had been hit by 2 planes, and that it was all over the news. I didn't understand at first, it meant nothing to me, I didn't even really know what the twin towers were, and then we got home, and I saw for myself what she meant. I watched in horror as they played the repeated images of the planes hitting the towers, and of the towers falling. But worse than that were the people, we noted with utter terror the people throwing themselves from the windows of the world trade center, and witnessed their chilling falls to the floor, and cried at the impossible position in which they found themselves, and the awful predicament they left their families in. Worst of all, for my 7 year old mind, was the peoples faces, I didn't understand what a terrorist attack was, I didn't understand why people had hijacked the planes and thrown them in to the world trade centers (I still don't understand to be honest), but I had an inkling of the impact it made on the American people, all over the news their ash covered faces were spread, all of them crying, and there was a look of utter loss and desolation, they looked like people who could never be repaired, who's worlds had literally, crumbled down around them, and even to me at that small age, I cried as I watched them.
It's been 10 years, and I never get used to those images, they still chill me to the core each and every time that I see them, they still manage to make me cry. Just recently, I happened to come across a recording of a man who was high up in one of the towers when it fell, the mans name was Kevin Crosgrove, it was a heart wrenching thing to listen to, and the phone cuts off when the tower falls, and from that we know his fate, and it makes me sob to hear it, I heard it once and it stayed with me, and I think will for the rest of my life. And this is me, I dont even live in NY and it had a profound effect on me, and so to everyone in America who had loved ones die in this terrible event, my thoughs are with you, all the time but especially tomorrow.
On a brighter note, I think America should be proud of how far they've come in 10 years, They have shown the opposition that they are not scared, a point that was made so well by talk of another world trade center, they carried on fighting when they could have quite as easily gone down, and stopped fighting, but they fought for a country with people worth fighting for. And though it seemed hopeless 10 years ago, and the scars wont ever go away, families are still in pain over the people they lost, theres some hope to find in the way as a country America has pulled through.
A minutes silence for those killed during 9/11, brave soldiers, never forgotten and never truly gone.
I know its hard sometimes but
Keep Smiling
Love, Tutti-Frutti
xxx
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