story8294.xml

story8294.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-10-02

September 11, 2001, I remember the day perfectly. It started out just like every other day; but little did I know this would be one of the most remembered days in the history of the United States. I woke up early in the morning and got ready for a boring day of school. My mom was waiting in the car to take me to school, and when I got in the car she was listening to the news. Now, this early in the morning I need music to get me up and going, so I requested that the radio station be changed. My mom told me that something huge had happened at the world trade center, and that she was listening to the news to find out what had actually occurred. I got all whiny and changed the station to my music anyway. We got into an argument about what we were gonna listen to and we just kept changing the station back and forth to what each of us wanted to listen too. Eventually my selfishness got the radio turned off all together. When we arrived at school I got out of the car furious at my mom and I didn?t even say goodbye, or I love you to her.
I went through my day and didn?t really hear very many specifics about incident until I got to my 4th period class, U.S. History. When I arrived a few students were there watching the news, and that was the first time that I realized the extent of what had transpired. Someone had hijacked airplanes, crashed them into the world trade center and left all of New York City in a cloud of confusion and alarm. When I thought about all that had gone on that morning I felt so incredibly selfish that I just wanted to listen to music when thousands of people had just died a horrible death. And what felt even worse was that there were thousands more that had lost their loved ones, and I hadn?t even said goodbye or I love you to my mother that morning because she wouldn?t let my listen to the radio. Right then and there I felt so incredibly lucky not to have known someone that was in one of those airplanes or the world trade center that morning, that I went and called my mom on the pay phone to tell her I was sorry and that I loved her.
You never realize what you have until you see someone else lose it, or it?s taken and gone forever from your life. Everyday I am so incredibly thankful that I didn?t have to lose someone that I love to realize that, but it is really sad that so many others did. I know that I am not the only one who was enlightened by this horrible tragedy. As citizens of the United States it took having our freedoms taken away, for us to realize how many we actually had.