It is hard to believe that is has already been ten years since our nation was brought to its knees on 9/11. Many of us were in elementary and middle school at the time and were hardly able to comprehend the magnitude of the events that day. We understood that America had been attacked and that many people had died, but that was it.
But without understanding all of the details of the attacks, many of us felt that our nation had changed forever. We saw this change in the faces of our parents and teachers, and we heard it in the trembling voices of the normally stoic hosts of news programs as they tried to make sense of the tragedy they were reporting on.
Many of the students who were sitting in elementary and middle school classrooms with us on 9/11 are now fighting and dying for us in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. No one on that day could have predicted that those events would lead to some of the longest-lasting wars in the history of our nation, or the amount of hate it would create around the world.
For the last ten years, Ground Zero has been an open wound for many Americans. It served as a reminder of the lives that were lost and families that were forever changed by the events of that day.
However, with today’s opening of the 9/11 Memorial, it feels as if part of the healing process is nearing completion. The bleeding hole that once was Ground Zero has become scar tissue.
There is order restored again; what once was chaotic is now reverent. There are nearly 3,000 names inscribed on the plaques of the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center. While this is in no way an acceptable substitute for the people themselves, perhaps it offers the families and loved ones of the fallen some measure of comfort.
A lot of healing has occurred in the last ten years. Let us hope that this healing trend continues, and that our nation never forgets that 9/11 occurred because of the hatred in the hearts of our attackers. We should make sure, as a nation, that we never let such hatred take root in our own hearts.
