story3785.xml

story3785.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I remember sitting in my car driving to work while listening to the news. I am ashamed to say that my first thought was, "How stupid do you have to be to crash into a HUGE building." Then I heard of a second plane crashing into the other tower; suddenly I was filled with a sense of urgency, not for the people in NY but for my loved ones. When the news reporter spoke of people jumping off buildings, I cried. Not sobs but just small tears streaming down my face; it was surprising to me that I was feeling so strongly about strangers I had never met. I see the news often and have seen real people dead or dying all the time. My attitude was, "Hey! It's life!" but this wasn't life; someone had so much hate for us that they would kill innocent people.

I felt hate towards these people they had inflicted fear in me; a fear that was shielded by the American attitude, "We are invincible."

Then, I along with many others went to the nearest hospital to donate blood. We contributed to the September 11th funds; and flew our flags proudly.

Our tragedy has united a nation of strangers in a way I never heard about in history. It was a day that we cried along with people we never met and contributed to our cause.

A day we saw our nation fall from grace and its people rise from its ashes.
I will always remember Sept. 11th as the day my faith in humanity was born.