I wasn't there, at the time of the attacks - in fact, I was all the way across the country, living in a small town in northern California. I was in 2nd grade. I was 8 years old.
Looking back on it now, it strikes me, how vividly I remember it. I remember waking up, on a Tuesday morning, hearing that the TV was on in the next room. I knew then that something was up - we only watched TV on the weekends. The only reason my mother would be watching TV in the morning on a Tuesday was if it was important - like, an election, or the Olympics, or something.
I got out of bed, and walked out to the living room. My mom was sitting on the couch, watching the news. They showed the same clip over and over again - a man was standing by a car, and the camera was looking up, with one of the towers looming overhead. Suddenly, there's screaming, and a plane rams into the tower. I don't remember what the newscasters said - all I remember is that same clip, over and over and over again.
At the time, I didn't really understand what had happened. I didn't know what it meant. All I knew was that everyone was so panicked - even people on my side of the country.
I was only 8 years old, and far far away. But the images I was given, of people jumping out of windows, walking out of the dust, coated with white and looking like ghosts, firefighters and policemen running through the street.......and a huge pile of rubble, as tall as my house, filling the street.
No, I wasn't there.....and it wouldn't be until much later that I would come to fully understand what had happened, and what it meant. When it happened, though, it didn't just affect the people of New York. It affected all of us. It made us realize that we weren't safe from war, from people who hated us so much that they were willing to give up their lives - and take the lives of the others - to make us afraid.
Now, so many years later, the man who was responsible for the attacks has met his sentence, and quite frankly, I believe that justice was done. I don't rejoice at this death, but I don't feel sad for it, either. No matter how much you justify it, murder is murder. Because of him, and because of so many others who followed him, so many lives were destroyed, in more ways than one.
What I take away from this tragedy - so many years later, at age 18 - is not a lesson of revenge or spite. It's a testament to how hate can destroy people, how it can make them less than human and view other people as obstacles rather than human beings. I think that hate is born out of disconnection - when we separate ourselves from other people. Would the terrorists have done this, if they had personally known every single one of the people in those towers, in the planes they crashed? Would they have done it if they had walked with us, talked with us? Perhaps. But I wouldn't think so.
This should teach us that we shouldn't meet hate with hate - all hate does is make things worse. It eats away at us, until there is very little of us left. We shouldn't let it take over our lives.
So today, I am making a promise: I am not going to hate. I am going to forgive. I know that's kind of strange, but I am being honest.
I will not let myself hate someone so much that I would want to hurt them. I will never hurt anyone. I will not hurt them emotionally or physically. I will not hold prejudice against someone because of their skin color, sexual orientation, religion, country of origin, or any other reason.
If someone should hurt me, or try to hurt me, I will forgive them. I will not try to get back at them, because they aren't worth acknowledging. I will pray for them - I will want them to become better people.
Most importantly, I will try to help someone who needs my help. I will try to walk in that person's shoes. I will try to empathize and have compassion for my fellow human beings. Even if they don't return the favor, I will continue to do this.
I doubt that I will fulfill this promise perfectly, as I am human, and humans aren't perfect. But I will try, to the best of my ability, to fulfill it. Every minute, of every day, I will be trying - and hopefully succeeding.
I think that this is the least I could do, in memory of the people who died that day, and for those who gave their lives trying to help those people. I am not an adult, but that doesn't mean that there is nothing I can do.
It is my hope that this is what we take away from September 11 - the promise to forgive, and love one another more than ever.
The world has enough anger and hatred in it.
We would not be helping anyone by adding to it.
So let's go against the current, and do the opposite.
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