I didn't think we'd make it down this year, but with bored girls and a boy who was content in a moving car, we headed South down I-15 tonight. Turning off 106th South, we stopped at the same healing field we visited last year in memory of 9/11. I should have anticipated the crowd on this tenth anniversary. To say it was packed and crazy is an understatement. I should have anticipated the need for jackets. It felt like Fall, the wind was kicking the flags up at all angles, and we returned to the car just as the rain began to pour.
But, crowds and storm aside, it was a great stop for tonight. A place set aside to remember the mess of ten years ago. We paused at the feet of a new statue revealed yesterday. We paused to read a handful of the tags that dangle from each individual flag. We paused to answer the constant questions from Paige, who gasped aloud as I explained that each flag was showing each person that had died when those towers fell down. Such a pause had me realizing, again, that there will always be those who lived through it and those who will learn of it through history textbooks.
I hope we will continue to pause in remembrance, and teach our children of the pride, sacrifices, and loss of 9/11. As President Bush said back on September 11th, 2001, "Today our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature. And we responded with the best of America."
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