Ten years since the terrorist attack on America. I can't believe it's been that long already. There have been all kinds of documentaries and specials on over the last few days and I have tried to watch as many as possible.
Sometimes it is so easy to just remember 9/11 as a terrible day when America was attacked and the world was changed forever. And it was.
Every year, around the anniversary, I watch all of these shows and remember. I remember that it was so much more than that. Nearly 3000 people died that day, many of them heroes.
I watched a show yesterday about two construction workers who rescued seventy people who were trapped. These courageous men, Frank and Pablo, ended up losing their own lives in the fall of the tower.
Another man, Orio Palmer, died heroically that day. I didn't know this before, but for some reason the firefighters' radios weren't working. Orio managed to fix his so that he speak with his crew. He also single-handedly fixed an elevator and managed to ride it to the 40th floor. He then ran up the stairs to the 78th floor: the site of the impact.
The tower collapsed just seven minutes after he got there. He didn't manage to save any of the lives up there but I can only imagine the hope that he brought to those people in their final moments, just by being there.
Not to be forgotten are the passengers of Flight 93. This plane was suspected of targeting the White House. The passengers fought back so hard that the hijackers crash-landed in a field. There were no survivors.
Usually on September 11th, people want to share their memories of the day: where they were, how they felt. Today, as I watch that horrifying news footage over and over, I don't want to think of my own memories. I instead want to honour the memories of the heroes and the innocent that died that day.
