September 11, 2001 Remembered

This is a photo my husband took in May 2012. The Sphere was once housed in the middle of Austin J. Tobin Plaza, the area between the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan. It now resides in Battery Park alongside an eternal flame. Today, eleven years after that horrible morning, it is necessary to remember what was lost, but also what brought us as a country together.

To say a lot has changed is both accurate and a little disingenuous. It seems incredible to me that I have a twelve year old niece who will never know what it meant to live in a "pre-9/11" world, yet whose everyday concerns mirror the ones I had at that age almost exactly. In the days following the attacks, the country, and indeed the world, pulled together in an awesome show of unity and strength.

For many of us, the 9/11 attacks is something we hear politicized by our elected officials, or those aspiring to office. When the day itself rolls around, we all stop and allow a solemn, genuine recollection of what the tragedy meant to us as a nation, and as a global community. To countless others, though, it's a day of more than just reflection. It's a painful reminder of the loved ones they lost, and the lives they have had to build in their absence.

I leave you with one other photo my husband took. This is at the memorial at Ground Zero, where stand the fountains engraved with the names of those lost. In the background is the foundation of the new tower.