**Remembering**

Today is the 7th anniversary of 9/11/01, a day that changed our nation forever. There were planes, disaster, smoke, devastation, ash, twisted metal, and out of it all, heroes. It's so strange to think that it's been 7 years since that day. It has affected so much of how we live our daily lives.

I don't want to pretend that I have all sorts of insight or intelligent things about this, but it is like our generation's defining moment, the thing that teachers will have our kids asking us, "Where were you when...?" like I had to ask my parents, "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" or (for those of us in WNY) "Where were you in the Blizzard of '77?" So this is what I will tell my kids:

I was a junior in high school. I remember I was in my French class, and we were taking a practice Regents exam, to guage what we would need to learn and work on for the big test at the end. We had a new principal that year, and he was ALWAYS breaking over on the intercom, with random thoughts and congratulations, whenever the whim struck him. So when he interrupted class (for the 2nd time that morning), I rolled my eyes and thought, "Now what?"

And then he told us what had happened - a plane had flown into the first tower and we were all to turn on the news. We watched in horror as we saw that now there were two planes, and then as the first tower fell and the tv personalities struggled for words. My friend sitting next to me had been in those those same towers less than a month earlier on her trip to NYC. She started to cry and I held her hand.

We live almost 8 hours from NYC, but at an all-girls school, it was a popular destination. Classes continued - what could we do but continue on? - but many of the teachers instead held discussions about what was going on, different theories on the news.

At home, I was glued to the broadcasts, not wanting to watch, but needing to know more. There had to be an explanation. Who could have done this? I was worried that there would be more to come. We live near an air force base, a national landmark and a huge international crossing site, and people were scared. The thing I remember most vividly is seeing people in some country in the Middle East, dancing and singing at what had happened, and I think that made me feel the most sad out of all the things I saw that day.

Life moved on, flags at half-mast. I got my first job the very next day. There were vigils and also problems - what is known to the nation as the Buffalo 6, is know to WNYers as the Lackawanna 6, an area with a high middle eastern population. Prejudices surfaced, ones people hadn't even realized they had. But things had changed.


Now, even 7 years later, I can't stop myself from reading people's accounts, and looking at the captivating and devastating images taken on that day, and the days the followed. But I also remember how people rushed to give blood, standing in lines for hours because it was what they could do to help. My uncle, a fire fighter, took a group of men to NYC to help out where they could, and to attend the memorials of their fellow fire fighters who hadn't made it.

I know I will remember this forever.