Ten Years Later....

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The media reminds us incessantly.   Storefronts have their advertising.  Flags are being raised and red, white, and blue is coloring the streets.

Ten years.

It has been a whole decade since the eleventh day of September became 9/11 and I don't think one of us actually needs a reminder because none of us could ever forget.  We won't forget.   We remember where we were and what we were doing with detail, and yet most of us can't remember why we opened the fridge.  OK, maybe that is just me!

I know that everything changed that day.  I know that each of us that lived through it has a visual tattooed in our minds;  A perma-chill in our spines;  A stashed tear ready to shed.   I know, if you are like me, you can't go to the top floor of a sky-scraper without thinking: "how did they....?;"  or "what if...?"  I know we see the New York skyline and know there is a hole where towers once stood.  I know that flying will never, ever be the same, even if they do, someday, provide meals and allow our luggage to fly free.   I know all of this is true.  Yet, really, did everything change?

Not for me.  Not for most of us, the fortunate majority, who didn't lose a loved one.  We continue on with our lives.   But there are children who will turn 10 in the next 12 months all of whom were born into this world without a father.  There are wives who are raising their kids alone.  There are parents who were forced to bury children.  There are families mourning heroes who survived the attacks but not the search and recovery.  These lives were altered, impacted, terrorized, in a way that I could never understand.

Where I live the talk of the town is the Eagles and their highly anticipated season opener.  Between discussing the over-under and the Superbowl potential there is the quick and casual mention of 9/11 and the "Where were you?" conversation.  In 2002, nobody would book a celebration on 9/11.  Ten years later there is no need for a discount in order celebrate on that day.  Today I alone have a township fair and a birthday party and we will go on with our day as if it is any other.  We will have some morning fun, we will watch football, we will eat too much cake.  We may take  moment of silence to remember, and I hope we all do, then we will, likely, return to the beer we are chugging.

And, I suppose, that is OK.  Because if 9/11 didn't change everything it did make us keenly aware of how a seemingly perfect day can be the farthest thing from.  It did teach us, or it should have, that in several seconds everything you ever knew can become something you never knew and all you can do is cherish what you have.  NOW.

Today, and every day after, just like every day since, I want to hug my loved ones, cherish their smiles, capture their laughter and realize that nobody, nothing, can take this moment away from me.  Away from my heart.