Remembering 9/11

It's that awful day again where everyone brings up what is easily one of the most painful memories in my lifetime.  I usually don't talk about it.  It's not that I try to forget, or that I don't care, but I don't really like remembering the event.  It's very disturbing.  However, I read a blog by my friend Bob today and he specifically asked "where you were when it happened and how did you feel."

Where I was is an easy question to answer, the second is a good bit harder.  I remember I was in school and I had an 8 o'clock class that morning.  It was a Tuesday so this class got out at 9:15 or 9:20, I don't remember.  I remember walking into my dorm lobby and seeing a handful of people sitting in the lobby watching TV.  This struck me as odd because people aren't normally watching TV at 9 in the morning in college, but I didn't notice much else.  I got on my computer and a friend informed me via IM what had just happened.  I immediately went back out to the lobby and watched the news for probably the next 2 or 3 hours straight.

I think I had lots of emotions running through me that day and the days after.  Confusing over why someone would do something like this.  Fear over what else they could do.  Grief for the families and people in NYC who were dealing with it face-to-face.  Pride in the nation that I lived in.  It's one of the few times that I can say that I truely had pride in the current version of the US, for the way that everyone pulled together in the days after.  It was a special thing that I will never forget.  I felt like in those few days we were a great nation.

I want to pray for the families that are still grieving over losses suffered that day and that they can forgive the people who did this and move on.  I want to pray for our government that they will do all they can to prevent something this tragic from ever happening again.  Lastly, I want to pray for the people who organized this attack and any attacks like it, that they'll realize that they don't have to do things like this.  That it causes pain and suffering that nobody should ever have to deal with, that they are punishing innocent people.