I was in high school on 9/11, a mere sophomore sitting in an American Sign Language class. Being a sign language class the teacher had instituted a no talking policy. The room was nearly always silent. I could count the times I heard my teacher’s voice on one hand.

One of the school janitors came in the room. She whispered to my teacher.

My teacher, like me, was short. She couldn’t reach the wall mounted TV and always used a small American flag to push the buttons. After the janitor left she did just that. The silence of our classroom had new meaning as we watched.

And we watched.

And watched.

And watched.

Bells rang, classes changed. But still, we watched.

The first tower burning , the second tower hit, the towers falling, the Pentagon, flight 93. It just kept coming and coming, getting bigger and bigger.

I was just 15, old enough to understand that this was huge…too young to really make sense of it. Were any of us old enough, wise enough to really make sense of it?

It wasn’t long before the conspiracy theories began. This was too shocking, too terrible, too deep an impact on the nation to be the work of someone very few of us had ever heard of before.

But it was.

To this day too few know the story behind that man and why he hates us. Too few know we were once allies. And, saddest of all, too few have held onto the spirit of giving and unity that swept the nation that day.

Today, learn a little bit more about what happened. Give blood. Give food to your local food bank. Hug your kids. Whatever you do, do something. And not just once a year in remembrance of the day so many lost their lives. Do something good every day. Live your life to the fullest. You didn’t lose your life that day. Don’t lose it to the minutia of living.