Memories

I recently lost my father. Well, not recently but in January 2009, my 86 year old father passed away. I lost a great part of myself that day. That's for another blog. One that will still have to wait. Anyway, I can remember my father telling me stories that were very hard to believe. Obviously they were true as he lived them. I can remember my father telling me stories of the Great Depression, the collapse of Wall Street, the first soup line. He told me stories of what he remembered. Where he was. What he was doing. He told me how he cried when he heard the Germany had invaded Poland. He was 17 years old and he knew that he would be going to war. He did end up ENLISTING into the Air Force. He was not drafted. He told me what he was doing when all of these great events happened in the world. I can remember him telling me these stories and some of them caused his eyes to get a little damp. Hell, some of these memories evoked powerful emotions in my father. I saw him cry more than a few times. You could see him get transported back in time to that moment in history for him to relive. The assassination of JFK. The assassination of MLK. These were things that my father SAW. He was there when we landed on the moon. He was there when tyranny was crushed in Europe. Well, I mean he was THERE but you get the idea.

Do you remember? Can you remember 8 years ago today? Have you forgotten? There are times that I wish I could. There are times that I wish I could go back. I'll never forget it as long as I live. I remember my wife calling me to say that something was going on in NYC and that a plane had hit the WTC. I can tell you the angle of the sun. I can tell you the thoughts running through my mind as I turned on FNC. There it was. A plane had hit the WTC. Whatever. Some dumbass had flown too low and hit a tower. I'm laying there listening to the talking heads describe how the tower was designed to blah, blah, blah. As I write this, I can't describe the emotions. I'm watching this when all of the sudden another plane hits the other tower. My reaction was immediate. Oh my God. One is an accident. Two is deliberate. I can remember thinking, this is it. This is an attack on my country. I can remember calling my wife back. Telling her that something bad was going on. I didn't shower that day. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. I remember the plane that was lost. I remember the plane that hit the Pentagon. I remember the heroic people that made sure that nothing bad happened on their watch when they forced the plane into an empty field in PA. I remember. I remember the heroic firefighters running towards the buildings. I remember the police officers running towards the building. I remember thinking to myself, just as my father had, this could be it. This could be a trigger to a war. Do you remember? Do you remember looking at the sky that night and seeing NOTHING? I live in a flight path. I see planes, I hear planes, all the time. Not on that night. I remember crawling up on my roof to look for any signs of life. Any ghetto birds? I can remember seeing F-16's. No commercial traffic.

Do you remember what it was like the next day? We were no longer left vs right. Pro lifers vs pro choicers. We were Americans. We were galvanized We breathed the same air. We all shouted to those who would attack us "HOW DARE YOU COME TO OUR HOUSE AND BRING YOUR NONSENSE". We weren't blacks, whites, asians, or mexicans. We weren't indians, or gays. We were Americans. We knew right vs wrong that day. Do you think that those people on Flight 93 worried about who was Republican or Democrat? Think they wondered who voted for Gore? Bush? They understood that deep down were all American. They understood that this great country isn't about anything else but standing up while the rest of the world pisses on our heads and declaring "WE ARE AMERICAN". We will stand up after being knocked down. We will persevere because our founding fathers understood that they were creating the greatest nation on earth. We allow dissenting thought because we are great. But deep down we're Americans.

When you tell your children about that day, or maybe your grandchildren, will you remember? Will you be a piece of living history?