In Remembrance

     Last Summer, driving back from Toronto, via Erie, Pa and Ohio, I happened to pass a sign for the Flight 93 Memorial. I had wanted to visit the site, but I just never did. The memories of that fateful sunny day in 2001 still haunt my dreams. We were driving back from Toronto and taking a very big circle route so I could get my sister-in-law and her boyfriend to as many states as I could before they went back to Germany. Unbeknownst to me, I decided to take a different route back to Maryland that day, which took us past Stoystown, PA. We had visited the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero in New York City a few weeks before with my wife's parents when they had come to visit, and the memories and feelings were still fresh in my mind. But then again, when concerning that day, aren't they always?

     We drove through the rollings hills and up the winding mountain roads to the site, and I felt uncomfortable, anxious. I felt like I did on that beautiful Tuesday morning back in 2001 when everything was shattered. I couldn't help thinking about the people, the ones who did not make it home that day. The ones in the Twin Towers. The ones at the Pentagon. And of course, the brave men and women of Flight 93 who, once they learned of the terrible events unfolding outside of their airplane, took it upon themselves to make a stand.

     What struck me about the United 93 site was how quiet and peaceful it was. The beauty of rural, mountainous Pennsylvania. How could this be the site of a terrorist attack? Or did I have it wrong? It was a reminder that there are many of us will do whatever we must to ensure the safety and of our country and the lives of innocent people. I thought back on the events of that day and it seemed so surreal. Far off, yet crystal clear. Had it really happened?

     I was looking for something specific along the wall where the names of the 40 passengers and crew were etched. Something that I had seen at the memorial in New York. A horrible and heart-breaking reminder that what took place on Tuesday September 11th, 2001 that showed the brutality of that day.

     There were five unborn children on the planes in New York City. And one on Flight 93. I do not know if there were any on the flight that hit the Pentagon. When I saw the names in New York a few weeks before I took this picture in Stoystown, I was crushed. Finding another innocent victim like this made me more angry then I think I have ever been. Is the world really this harsh and awful of a place?

     So many lives were lost senselessly that day. When I think back on what happened of 9-11-2001, I now immediately think of the children that never got a chance to play in the sun. Or swim in the ocean. Or have a rainbow loom. Or kiss a boy. Or ride a bike. And how that may be the most terrible tragedy of all.