Eye for an Eye

I'm one day early but I thought I would go ahead and give an update...

I haven't lost any more weight in this week.  I am trying to be ok with that but it's a little discouraging I won't lie.  I have been walking more and being more active so to make myself feel a little better I'm saying that I've gained a little muscle.  My clothes are fitting more loosely so it's quite possible. After watching the festivities yesterday of the Ten years since 9/11 I've stepped back a little from caring so much.  I'm not quitting and I am still going to be just as persistant to lose the weight, but for a minute there I forgot about a few things.

In 2001 when the attacks happened on the US I was only 12 years old.  It was two days before my 13th birthday and I was so annoyed that it happened then.  Thirteen is a big deal to a child.   I didn't understand the awful things that were happening around me, all I cared about was if people were still going to come to my birthday party.  Now that I have grown up a bit, have a child of my own, this year it is like it finally hit me.  The devestation, the tragedy, it all hit me at once.  This year, one decade later, it finally all became so clear.  It's a crazy moment when you finally understand something when you are an adult.  You don't want to admit it to many people because after all at 22 these are things you should already know.

Watching the televison shows about the people who were in the towers, on the planes, the firemen, police men, and all other rescue workers was very emotional yesterday. As I fought back the tears while sitting with my family I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming love for my country.  For my Country.  For the people in my country.  For the people of New York, who were going about there everyday and their city was destroyed, their friends,  co-workers, family, gone just like that.  I tried to imagine what I would say to my mother, my dad, my son if I was in one of the offices that was burning, one of the planes that was about to go down.  What would my final words to them be? Words of comfort? Words of Love? Words of fear?  What would I say?  What would I want them to know before I was gone forever.  What would I want them to tell me if they were the ones making the call? 

There were so many thoughts going through my head as I was reliving that day.  Seeing the children who had been orphaned, or who never knew their fathers b/c they parrished before they were born it was truely an emotional experience.  I looked at my own son and I felt the fear that all of them must have felt at that moment.  The fear of not knowing what could happen.  Not knowing when the next attack might be.  I tried to put myself in their shoes, the people of New York, we got to see the news coverage and we heard so much more than they did at that time.  I tried to put myself in the shoes of the person stuck in the elevator after the first plane hit, not knowing what was stopping the elevator from reaching the floor.  The person who was watching the fire burn from their apartment building on the 32nd floor just two blocks away and thinking how awful that a plane would hit the towers, then realizing it wasn't an accident when the second one got hit and not knowing what building would be next. 

When 9/11 happened  I was just a child,  sitting in my English class, walking around from class to class and seeing the tragic events that were occuring.  Not quite understanding the events that were taking place in front of me.  I think a lot of my generation felt the same.  Some of them may not even realize now the horror of the day.  Well, not the entire magnitude of it. 

I have decided that for the 20 year anniversary of this day comes around, Hayden will be the exact same age I was when it happened,  we are going to New York for that one.  We are going to stand at the WTC memorial site, and he is going to learn about what happend, how evil that evil can be.  He is going to read the names, listen to the stories, and walk down the same streets that were once so covered in rubble that you couldn't tell where the road stopped and side walk began.   I know he won't understand it completely but I want him to see it. 

If 9/11 has taught me anything else it is this:: Evil knows no face, it is no people.  Evil is something we chose to be.  We have a choice.  Just because someone did something you don't approve of doesn't give you the right to do something back.  Just b/c a certain type of someone did something doesn't mean that all persons of that type are like that.  Everyone makes a choice, punish the person not the persons.  We are all different, and hatred does nothing.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.