Remember

I remember what I was doing on September 11, 2001.  I was getting ready to go fly.  I had gotten my license a few months earlier, and was still learning.  I got up just after the attacks, and though stunned, decided to go to the airport to see what was going on and talk to my flying buddies.  At the airport, a jumpy police office let me in but warned me not to try to get in a plane.

I remember the skies being empty.  Unusual, and particularly obvious and eerie  to an aviation buff like me.  I remember the first plane I saw flying, a few days later (a Northwest DC-9) banking through the clear blue sky. I remember flying on an airliner a week later, as things slowly returned to "normal."  People thought I was crazy for flying then; I told them it was never going to be safer than right then, with everyone on their toes.

I remember the fear and uncertainty.  I remember the sense of togetherness and pride.  I remember the grief for people I didn't even know.

Since then, people have used 9/11 for political purposes.  And that makes me mad.  But mainly I remember the good that came out of the bad.  We got stronger as a nation, and as individuals.

People say 9/11 changed everything.  It didn't.  It did change us, made us aware of our vulnerability, made us aware that we are part of a larger world.  Let us remember, and be better people in spite of, and because of, this awful event.