We will NEVER forget... how could we?

How could we forget what happened that horrible day in NYC 5 years ago when all last week was on TV was a buildup of today's memorial... and all that has been on TV today and probably the rest of the week is more documentary styled reports on the reports and etc!

The terrorist attack on the Twin Towers was a horrible, horrible thing. But at some point, we have got to move on from this terrible day and start our lives over. I feel so bad for the families that lost loved ones in those buildings and airplanes this time of the year. I know I get sad whenever the anniversary of the passing of my grandfather comes around, and it isn't televised on the news for 14 days!!!!

This morning hit me though... might have been that I went to bed at 11 pm, woke up at 2:45 unable to breath out of my nose... 3:15 finds me wandering through my house in search of Tylenol for the sinus headache I had acquired while attempting to sleep, 3:30ish finds me rummaging through my "medicine bag" under my sink looking for something, anything that would help my nose... 4:15 finally finds me sorta sleeping again... until 5:40 when the alarm went off. SNOOZE... 11 minutes later, alarm is telling me to get out of bed... I get up, find my way into my bathroom, shut the door, turn on the light, look at myself, turn the light back off, walk back to my bed and reset the alarm for 6:20... I looked about how I felt today... which was fine with me!

So my feeling horrible might have helped with my really sad feelings that I had as I left my house to drive to Jonathan and Amanda's to go to work. The last thing I saw on the news was the fireman's memorial. That got me... my first thought was, that could be my dad... knowing that in the months that followed 09/11 my father endured many an hour of intense search and rescue in high-rise buildings in downtown Tulsa, my father who at the time was on the hazardous materials squad responded to multiple anthrax reports, my dad who is currently finishing FEMA training for heavy search and rescue... that hits me everytime.

But then I think... what about 04/19... does anyone remember what happened on 04/19/1995???? (If you are trying to think of what happened that day, then the answer is NO!) We will never forget those lives that were lost on OKC on that day, just like we will never forget the lives that were lost in NYC on 09/11, or the lives that have been lost in the days following over in Iraq and Afghanistan in the war... but somehow, we have to put the pieces of our broken hearts together the best we can and move on. To remember those people, to honor them in all that we do, and to not dwell on our losses. It seems to me, that by our dwelling on the losses of that day, we are giving the terrorists the attention that they were craving 5 years ago...

Amanda wrote in her blog about how she remembered her day 5 years ago. I remember that morning all to well... and the remainder of that week. I had my first "real" car accident on 09/09 with my best friend/roomate... we spent that night in the ER and got home in the wee hours of the morning. After sleeping off painkillers we both woke up on 09/11 to news reports of airplanes flying into a building. I was still groggy and wasn't putting two and two together... I stumbled into my bathroom thinking that I was seeing things. Then I went off to class, to find that class had been cancelled and most of our campus was shut down. Ok, fine with me, more sleep... then on 09/13 I get a frantic phone call from one of my closet friends telling me that he loved me and how much our friendship meant to him. He was calling me cause he was on 24 hour notice to ship out. I was devastated. Much to my relief he was not shipped out until Feb 13, 2003. But that week was very odd for me. One, we didn't have any airplanes flying overhead so the skies were eerily quiet... except for the occassional blast of a F-16 from the airport... Two, I was a GA/Graduate teacher of our ESL class, mainly filled with students from the middle east. We were very uncomfortable with how things were going to be in that class for the remainder of the year, here people were accusing anyone that wasn't an "american" of being a part of the terrorism plot...

We should take a moment to remember those lives and those brave people that responded to the call of duty on that fateful day, we should pause and remember those soldiers who risk their lives every morning when they wake up in another country on the other side of the world, all to protect us from the "bad guys"...

Say a little prayer... remember those people... but don't dwell on the past... move forward... That's my advice