Editor's note: The following is a retrospective vignette remembering the events of Sept. 11, 2001, in light of the death of Osama bin Laden.
As a 17-year-old in my senior year of high school, I thought I was living the high time of my life. I knew no tragedy, my generation didn't really know war.
The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, my father was sitting in our front room watching the news just minutes after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. I overheard very little as I walked past the TV and out the door for school. All I knew was that a plane had crashed. It's funny how I realize now that I never considered there might be people on the plane, or that the crash had injured people in the building. At that point in my youth, the events of the world had never touched me. I didn't watch the news and I didn't see past music lessons, football games, passing math class and hanging out with my friends.
I continued in my own bubble of ignorance for 10 minutes more, when I reached my home room at school. I arrived to see my teacher pacing a short stretch of hallway with a cell phone pressed to her ear. She was frantic. Alarmed, I stepped into the classroom to see if anyone knew what was going on. Instead of walking into the noisy conversations about last night's homework, I stepped into near silence. Everyone in class was glued to horrifying images of the World Trade Center on the TV.
With those images burning into my 17-year-old mind, I finally began to grasp the gravity of the situation. My teacher had friends and family in the buildings. We were nervous, worried and terrified. Suddenly we were not high and mighty seniors. We felt ignorant, confused and unsure of ourselves. Class did not begin that day. The halls of the high school were silent as everyone looked on New York from their classrooms.
That day, the world became real to us. We heard our president declare a war and wondered what that really meant.
It was also that day that we truly became Americans. We became proud of our country, our people and those who were fighting to protect us. Maybe because we were children who still sought protection, that was the most touching of all.
As the years have passed, I reflect on that day. As my life experience has matured me, I see those events differently every year. After my marriage, I cry for those who lost their husbands. As friends and family members experience pain or death, my empathy and sorrow run deep.
On this day, the day that Osama bin Laden's terror ends, I cry again as I wonder how those families who lost their precious loved ones to his commands must feel. I remember those images of people jumping from the World Trade Centers and feel that there is justice for them after all. I think of the soldiers who fight for us, and hope that this moment, in a way, can justify their service in harm's way.
I'm sure that this isn't the end of terror. But this day marks the end of an era. This day is a restitution day. On this day, America kept a promise and proved to the world that we will not give up.