15 years later, 9/11 leaves hole in many hearts
September 9, 2016
As I stared into the gaping holes in the earth, I felt a hole growing in my heart. I will never forget the way I felt standing at the edge of the 9/11 memorial in New York City, realizing how much of an impact those crashing towers truly made.
How many years must pass before a lost life loses its value?
— Callie Boren
I never enjoyed history. I never saw a point in remembering a list of dates, names, locations and battles that did not even happen in my lifetime. Nobody bothered to tell me someday, my life would fall into the confines of a history book. Someday, every event I have lived through will be weighed on some imaginary scale of significance and, if deemed relevant enough, will be sorted onto a timeline children will study in school and care about very little.
From my perspective, I belong to the generation that arrived just in time for a new millennium. My generation watched the terrorist attacks in September of 2001 from TV screens at daycare. My generation ignored the news every day until the day terrorists attacked the Boston Marathon. My generation keeps a constant social media trend going to #prayfor_, filling in the blank with each country to suffer a devastating attack. And now, my generation is asked to stand for a moment of silence to honor the men and women who died in a tragedy most of us cannot remember.
Many people my age ask why we should honor the day so intentionally, and my best answer is a question: how many years must pass before a lost life loses its value? For so many Americans, the people killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks were more than just numbers in a death toll or even faces with names. The lives lost in the attacks were those of fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and friends. As a result of one fateful day 15 years ago, many lives will never be the same.
As the events of that fateful Sept. Tuesday in New York slip from the memories of Americans into the pages of history books, many people have lost the emotion they experienced in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. Emotion, however, does not define the American spirit. We remember and rebuild, moving forward by looking back and recognizing the lives lost along the way.
When reality turns into history, it often loses its emotional appeal–but not in America. United States history suggests a timeless motive of heart. We fight for what we believe in, and in many cases, fight to the death. Some people fulfill this duty by joining the armed forces, but some people fight from home. Every person who lost a loved one 15 years ago and still lives today fights a daily battle with grief, knowing life is forever changed because of one historic day.
The world was still turning on Sept. 12, and it still turns today. As the water rushes into the holes in the New York cement and fills the 9/11 memorial, it can hardly hope to fill the depths of America’s loss. But it fills us with hope. We look to Sept. 11, 2001 not as a mention in a history textbook, but as a painful part of our past which drives us on into the future as a different, but stronger nation. And to my generation: although we may not remember, may we never forget.
Hey! My name is Callie Boren, and I am Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Eagle’s Tale. This is my third and final year on staff. I am also the National Honor Society president, senior class president, an officer in the Chamber Choir, and a member of the UIL...