I remember 9/11 as if it was yesterday.
12 years ago, I was a junior in college. My classes didn’t start until later in the morning, so I was enjoying breakfast in my dorm room and watching TV. When the local channels went down, I switched to the cable channels, not knowing what happened.
In the chaos, cell phone numbers were exchanged to call our families, the landlines had been knocked down when the towers fell. That evening, I remember sitting on the steps of the student union, feeling lost and unsure. I was alive and hours away from New York City, but my heart and my mind were within the city I had known and loved my entire life.
I remember coming home the first fall break and as the bus drove over the bridge, everyone looked up to see where the Towers had stood only a few weeks before.
I visited Ground Zero this summer for the first time. Standing between the two reflection pools, surrounded by tourists and locals, I felt that the nearly 3000 souls taken from us 12 years ago were still there, watching over us.
New York City, like the people who inhabit her, are survivors. We may be bent, but never broken. 12 years may have passed, but we still mourn and remember.
RIP.
Writergurlny 