9/11: uNiTeD wE StAnD

Reflect: to return, to show, to think. It's been 10 years since 9/11 and I've been silently commemorating it this week. On Friday I went through part of TIME 's 9/11 Tribute--it is beautiful. I watched various video clips, such as the interview of the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald saying, "I kept walking uptown until the people were clean..." He had hired his brother and his best friend, and he had lost them both along with all 650+ employees located within the north tower. Or Daisy Khan, now the executive director of the American Society of Muslim Advancement, who prior to 9/11 had worked in the trade towers and was on vacation during the attack; and Lyzbeth Glick, who's husband was on flight U93. However, I also feel like I got some of my emotion out a few months ago when I wrote about the death of Osama bin Laden, so I've been hesitant on what to say.

This nation has felt an extreme sense of loss. One that I don't believe had been felt by most generations alive today. Amidst grandparents who fought so we'd never have to feel that sense of loss, on September 11, 2001 tragedy willfully inserted itself into our lives. I remember the utter confusion I felt walking into a silent room at 8am (10am EST) from a still sleeping campus to a vision on the big screen projector of the twin towers bellowing smoke. My classmates and I sat there in various forms of shock even after class was over. My mind hurled two hours and 2,000 miles forward to the family I'd just left in Washington D.C. and the family in NYC we'd just visited before school started the week prior. Where were they? Were they okay? Was everyone they knew okay?

Now today, this time mere minutes from the Pentagon, I rewatched some of the footage from that morning and those feelings came washing over me again. I sense the tension in Tom Brokow's voice as he tries to piece the information together for the thousands watching him, pleading for answers. Who did this? Why did they do this? How did it happen? Then the incredulity we felt when we realized it wasn't an accident--but several attacks--turned to one of horror and grief as we heard of people jumping out of the towers in desperation. People streaming across bridges to get out of the way. Then the towers collapsed, swallowing all life left inside.

That blackness, it seemed, lingered as we searched for understanding, of what this really meant. But amidst the suffering grew the resilience. The resilience I can imagine our grandparents, great grandparents passed down to us. The determination to be better, to prove these people (who they were, the government was still piecing together) wrong, the desire to make things right. And it brought us together as a nation.

Then wars in far off places happened and economic disaster called for our attention. It seems that slowly the feelings of camaraderie were dissipating. But I believe this 10th anniversary of 9/11 causes us to return to the event that changed the way we live our lives. It gives us time to think of how we've changed as a people. Has our tolerance increased? Our desire to serve become more important? Has our view of life outside our borders become openly optimistic or cynically sharpened? Do we band together again as real neighbors who know each other by name? Are we truly United We Stand. I hope that answer for each individual is an emphatic yes, because then I know for certain that out of this tragedy comes triumph.