10 years. It sounds cliche, but it really does feel like yesterday. I can remember only one thing specifically from September 10th... I had just gotten a post card delivered to me in my office. I won a party for 20 people at the adult arcade bar called Barcode (think Dave and Buster's but smaller and not as good), drinks, games, etc all paid for. How great was that I had thought at the time. I honestly don't recall a single thing more. The very next day however, I can remember almost in it's entirety with crystalline clarity. It's amazing how the human mind works. I remember the emotions most of all, from the initial confusion when I heard the explosion from the second plane striking the tower while I was riding the Staten Island Ferry into work, to the sudden panic when the realization that it was no accident, but an attack, set in. The responsibility to put my own fears aside and be the anchor for my girlfriend who's father was supposed to be in that tower. The sense of relief when friends and family slowly checked in that they were safe to the overwhelming sense of love I felt from friends and family when I had finally let them know I was safe. Our house on Staten Island had become a base of operations of sorts. Our friends all wound up there as a place to email, telephone or instant message their loved ones of their whereabouts. I remember logging on to AIM and seeing the screen get blasted with no less than 90 IM windows all at the same time asking me if I was ok. I remember the love I felt for my brothers and sisters and my mother and father, how all the little things you squabble over, like who used all the hot water and who ate the last Devil Dog, while they're important in creating the very fabric which is essential to a functioning and loving family, ultimately are just that... little things. That we were all alive and together was all that mattered in the world.
So much has happened in my life in the 10 years since... I met my best friend who is more like my third brother, My grandma passed away, I lost my job... and got it back, I got married, my sister got really sick... but thankfully recovered, my father successfully battled cancer and a quadruple by-pass, my brother and sister both had weddings and we welcomed new siblings to the family. We bought a house. I was blessed with 3 nieces one whom is my Goddaughter, 1 nephew and a bevy of second cousins. Lastly we welcomed the two most beautiful miracles these eyes have ever seen into the world. I look back on these last 10 years and I am thankful. Thankful for my life and for the blessings that have be given to me. I take the time, not just on the commemoration days, but every day, to make sure I don't take those blessings for granted because I remember all those people who lost someone they loved on that day, 10 years ago and all the people who have lost someone they loved fighting for this country in the years since. I remember them and hope that by remembering them and living my own life to the fullest, I can give their sacrifice value. May we, as a people, never forget what happened on that day 10 years ago, not just to prevent the horrors of that day from happening again, but more importantly to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
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