There are the images that will be seared into my brain forever- ones I wish I could erase. The ones of destruction and fire that threaten to drown my depths in tears.
These images bring me to my knees.
And then there are other, more powerful glimpses from that day. Recorded moments that help me rise when everything around me is falling, falling, falling.
They are faces. They are snapshots of hands: hugging, reaching, providing, grasping, clutching, helping, protecting. They are haunting, they are compassionate, they are scared, they are determined. They are covered in soot and dust and white and ashes; they all blend together as one unified organism: the American spirit.
Twelve years later, I don’t feel the physical sensation of fear from that day.
I break, instead, when I recall the unbelievable acts of love for fellow man, woman, child, stranger.
The way they ran toward hell, and not away. The way they opened their hands and hearts and stores and flooded the streets with anything, anything, anything to help.
The way compassionate tears put out fires and began to wash away the soot.
When a day has gone sour, or when I am having trouble with someone, I recall those seared snapshots. And then I imagine us being together: would we help one another in our darkest time of need? Covered in the ashes from the evil sins of others?
The answer is always yes.
The good will always outweigh the bad.
And in the end, the hundreds of thousands of faces and hands and hearts and actions of that day and the ones that proceed will overpower the darkness.
On that day we had, we held one another.
This is what I choose to remember-
On this day and every day thereafter.
America’s faces and her bountiful nation’s arms: reaching, helping, grabbing, comforting.
May we never forget and may we always honor those that perished in bravery.
And the American spirit that held-
US together.