Did you hear what happened?!?

I was sitting in my bedroom working on a paper for class when my roommate burst through our front door.

“Did you hear what happened? The World Trade Center has blown up.”
At first I had no idea as to what she was talking about. Curiosity got the better of me, and I finally turned on the television to see what was happening.

As soon as I turned it on, terror hit me. I saw the scenes of the destruction that had just hit our country, and I was mortified as to what could happen next. Then the most unimaginative thing happened, I saw the second tower being hit by what looked like an airplane. No way, I thought to myself. An airplane did not just fly into that building. I was sitting on my bed looking at the television, thinking that I was just dreaming. No way was this happening to our country; no way was this happening in my lifetime. I heard a scream, and I ran to see what it was all about.

I entered my roommate’s bedroom to find her sitting on her floor. I felt like I was made of stone; I could not move anywhere. I stood there watching all of this terror unfold before my eyes. I could not take my eyes off the television for a single second. I began to feel sick to my stomach, because I felt as if my world was coming to an end.

Was this what we had always learned about in Bible study? Was this what we had been waiting for since the beginning of mankind, and now it was going to end in this horrible way?

We watched in silence as history was made before our eyes. We were living this tragedy. I knew at that moment nothing would ever be the same again. No longer will young people ask older people where they were when they found out John F. Kennedy was shot, but now they will ask, where were you when the World Trade Center collapsed?

As I watched in horror, I realized that my life had changed drastically. No longer did I live in a country where nothing could happen; I now lived in a country where a war was being fought on the front line. My world had been changed forever.

As I watched it all happen, I knew that our country would come together in support. I knew that this would not get us down and that the world would stand beside us. I realized that this was not the end of the world, but it was the end of the world, in many ways, for the thousands of people who were involved in this tragedy and for the lives that it touched, but in retrospect, our faith is still there.

Faith is what is helping us all to get through this. Whether you believe in God, or in Allah, or in Buddha, someway or another it is probably faith that is holding you together. It is the faith that we have in our country, in our government, in our flag and in ourselves that will allow us to move past this.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 21 2001. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry