9/11

I've been debating posting this since I woke up this morning. I don't like bringing politics onto this blog because it generally attracts bashing and, to be perfectly honest, I'm afraid it will affect my business. However, 9/11 is much more than politics, and I feel something needs to be said. I can't bring myself to lock this thread to avoid bashing, but I will let you all know now that any personal attacks will be deleted as soon as I notice them.

I still remember this day... to be honest, I was completely clueless for most of it. I was in grade 7, had just started at a new school...

Our school went into a total media lockdown. We weren't even allowed to leave the property for lunch (we were if our parents came to get us, but in that case we couldn't come back for the rest of the day). Most of us had no clue what was happening. Heck, I didn't even know what the twin towers were until I went home and saw my parents watching the news (I'm in Canada). I mean, I'd seen them in pictures, but I'd never really thought anything of them.

There was a rumor going around... one of the students had gone to the washroom to take a call on her cellphone (which she wasn't even supposed to have at school). It was her mom calling to say that one of the towers had been hit and that she was coming to get her from school because her father was in one of them (they didn't know which, and I don't think I ever heard). She told one person before she left, and that started a rumor that a plane had hit a building somewhere.

Most of us didn't believe it - I mean, kids say crazy things sometimes, and rumors get out of hand. We all figured that if it had happened, it was just a crazy accident. I don't think any of us were prepared for what we saw on TV when we got home that night.

There were people from many different places of the world in those buildings - just on routine business trips - and none of their families will ever recover. 

I have family and friends fighting in the war, and every time I get a chance to see them I just want to beg them to stay... but that's not my place.

I am a firm believer that what's done is done and all any of us can do now is what we believe is right... and my friends and family over there are doing what they once believed was right. Some of them still believe it, some of them just don't know what else to do anymore.

Personally, I don't really agree with the war. I can't convince myself that there should even be a war, but if it was right in the first place it should have ended by now. But I also don't believe in "an eye for an eye". I don't believe in "turn the other cheek", either... but there are other ways to fight. 

And war... I don't know, it changes people. Even if your loved ones go off to fight and make it back, they'll never be the same person again. I can see them cringe away from me whenever I make a sudden movement, I can see their sadness when I'm suddenly afraid of them at certain moments - I know that whether they mean to or not, they can hurt the ones they love most if they're caught off guard... and having been abused in the past, I can't help but cringe away from anyone who gets that look in their eyes. Some of these people don't even know that about me, and in some cases I never had the opportunity to meet the person they were before the war.

I don't really pray, not the way most of you likely do, but to me a thought is all a prayer really is... and every day, I think about these people. The people who were there for 9/11, the people who were there for the aftermath despite the danger, the people who went overseas, and the people and families who will never be the same... 


And after thinking through all that... I can't help but wonder what started it all. Maybe I'm too curious for my own good - but before any of the planes crashed, before those who crashed them started training to fly, before anything even got put on paper or said out loud... what caused someone to think it all up? And whoever that was - whether they're now dead or alive - do they think it was worth it?