I, myself, do not remember 9/11. I would have just turned eleven and I think I would have been in the sixth grade. My brother tells me that we went to a private school. I don't remember that either. I had a brain tumor and I suppose that there was a lot that I missed. Even the sound of a hundred-thousand breaking hearts did not wake me. For that, I feel guilty.
I do remember 9/11/2002. I remember the panic that I felt when I saw the planes crashing on the news. I remember crying and thinking that it was happening then. I remember the sound of the silent shatter of my heart as I watched the planes fly into the Pentagon and people falling from the towers. I remember wondering why my family wasn't hurt by it and I didn't realize that it had already happened. While all of America's shattered hearts had been mended together and a fire lit to protect what was left, I was left to mend mine, a year later, alone.
I remember the horror. I remember the heartbreak. I remember the loneliness. I remember where I was and what I was doing, a year later. I remember going to high school and the same question every year, "Where were you on 9/11/2001?".
My heart still breaks for everyone we lost in those tragedies, in the planes and in the war that began in response.
