What does September 11 mean to you? This message was more difficult to write, 19 years have passed and reflecting I still have the same first reactions. It was a day of disbelief. Now, in this year of 2020 there comes a feeling in that nothing can surprise us, the joking tone in our voices saying, “Oh yeah, must be 2020”. That was not there in 2001, the concept that our nation’s security would be questioned and nothing about that morning seemed real.  

On October 30, 1938 H.G. Wells’ novel “The War of the Worlds” aired on the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. The original novel tells the story of a Martian invasion on Earth radio adaptation caused mass hysteria convincing thousands of listeners across the United States that the Earth was being attacked by Mars. As I stood in my parent’s house on September 11, 2001 watching the television broadcast in disbelief, I kept waiting to find out that this was another realistic dramatization. That was not the case. On that day I felt a loss, not because I knew anyone who died that day, not because I knew anyone who was sacrificing and running into the battles, but because we lost, as a nation, the sense of security that I had grown up feeling. No longer would we be able to meet loved ones at the gate of an airplane terminal, iconic skylines forever changed, those are the trivial things that come to mind at first. We lost much more than that.  

There are so many things that we cling to when the unexpected and unreal events occur. Every day, I hope to take what I learned on that day and so many others, that no matter how hard we plan, no matter how hard we work, there are things that happen out of our control. Focus on the things we can control: the simple acts of kindness, the simplicity of joy. What can this day mean for you and how can it be a tribute to those who sacrificed in so many ways?