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Unit 4

September 11 and My Turn

One of the things I always believed is that no matter how bad something is, you can take something positive out of it. The one time I wasn't sure of that was on September 11.

I happened to wake up early that day. I turned on the television and as I was flipping through channels, I saw a plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. My initial reaction was that it was a terrible accident. Then I saw another plane fly into the South Tower and I realized that I was witnessing an act of terrorism.

Viewing the tragic events, I grieved for the victims and prayed for the survivors. I spent the day glued to the television, watching the horrible images over and over again. I sat on my couch overwhelmed with emotion. Who was responsible for taking the lives of so many innocent people? What was their motivation?

I thought about the firefighters going into the burning buildings to rescue people and never coming out. People say athletes are heroes, but I know that's not really true. The real heroes are firefighters and police officers.

I hear older people talk about the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Kennedy assassination and how dramatically those events affected them. For my generation, the tragedy of September 11 paralleled that of Pearl Harbor and Kennedy assassination. We will be talking about the disastrous effect this day had on our country, and our lives as individuals, for years to come.

It wasn't until a few weeks after September 11 that I began to see that perhaps some good did come from this tragedy. People seem different now, more understanding, more tolerant. Little things that seemed to be such a bother are no longer a big deal. Personally, I'm more patient than ever. I realize life is too short, and too precious to let myself get upset over trivial things. Life is also too short to carry resentments and so I've become more forgiving and understanding. I've also learned that you can't take things for granted. Things change in the blank of an eye. People go to work and don't come back. One minute they're living and next minute they are not. And it doesn't matter who you are; there is nothing you can do about it. We never know when our lives will be over. So we need to make the most of every minute we have.

You try to learn from what happened. You can't be consumed by it. All you can do is just live.