Never Forgotten

I took a (stealth) trip to Los Angeles to visit my parents this week. On my Virgin America flight, I watched a Tom Brokaw {I <3 him} special on the 9/11 tragedy. It's not out of the ordinary for this time of year considering tomorrow being the 10th anniversary of such devastation.

Although I lived on the opposite coast, I will never, ever forget where I was that day when I found out. I remember something before leaving the house for class about the World Trade Center and planes, but little did I know the devastation this meant or the act of hatred that caused such attacks. It just seemed impossible. I was in college and walking to my morning class when I found out that they were canceled and we were to go home. I spent hours in the student parking lot that day just trying to connect with my mom on the phone and discuss the enormous loss that had occurred that morning.

Last night, as I sat on that airplane back home to Chicago, I was just crying as I watched these stories again. And in the wake of losing my own son to devastation and abrupt loss, I felt a tinge of understanding for those families who lost loved ones that day. Never would I have expected to ever understand even a portion of their sadness and now, 10 years later, I do. When I attempt to go to that place of self-pity and why me, I think of them. Why them? Why thousands of people? Why did their families have to suffer such enormous loss and destruction for no reason? Sometimes there just aren't answers. Sometimes bad things happen and life just sucks. Explanations wouldn't matter in cases of death, anyway, because the damage is irreparable.

We just simply have to remember. At the very least, they deserve the honor.