Ten Years Ago

Ten years ago this very day, I was a high school sophomore at Solon High School. Nothing felt different about that particular morning. I woke up, had my breakfast and headed off to school as usual. At the time, it felt a normal day.

Hours after I walked through the doors of the school and to my first class, I would find out why I would never forget that day.

While sitting in third period French, my teacher overheard another classroom across the hall. The teacher in that classroom was talking about two airplanes, New York City and the Pentagon. How these correlated was unknown to me until my teacher walked across the hall to find out.

“Students, there has been an attack on New York City and the Pentagon.”

It didn’t register the first time I heard it. All I could feel was shock and the halls were quieter as I walked to my next class.

As I walked through the halls, I noticed every television set was on and the same horrific images kept showing over and over again.

“Could this really be happening?”

That was one of the thoughts running through my head as I saw the images of the towers, the Pentagon and heard the news of Flight 93 landing in Pennsylvania. The images and the footage were repeated over and over and the nightmare never ended.

I’ll never forget my hands shaking as I opened my car door to drive home. I wanted to be with my parents that night and knew the same images were going to be shown at home.

Lots of innocent lives were lost that day and the world changed forever.

As the days passed since 9/11, my dad made a suggestion:

“Jeff, how about we go to the hardware store and buy an American flag?”

Within minutes, he and I both were in the car and we picked out an American flag that has flown in our yard since the aftermath of that horrific day.

I’m ten years older now and have not forgotten the horror, the anger and the pain I felt that day. I’ll never forget the horrific images on television, the Internet and the paper and wondering how the attack happened. A lot has changed in ten years as I am old enough to vote, have graduated college, have purchased my first vehicle and have begun a career but the sadness I felt that day is a memory that always remains.

On the eve of the tenth year anniversary, I flipped on a special regarding the World Trade Center. My dog Sidney, who is a little over a year old, was sleeping nearby until the image of the towers falling came on. I froze within seconds of re-living the image again and Sidney came right by my side. Sidney wasn’t alive ten years ago but knew I was affected by the image.

I will also never forget how the nation came together, how the American flag became more then a symbol for me, and I still send prayers to those who lost their lives on that very day.