Hero

I remember it well.  Those of us who were old enough will never forget Sept. 11, 2001, and we share a common bond that way. It's kind of like when I was a kid, and the adults in my life would sometimes talk about where they were when they heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot.
Some of the places they were seemed so insignificant, like standing in front of the kitchen sink washing dishes, or some such mundane thing like that. As a child I didn't get it. Now I do. I have my own kitchen sink story. Just as mundane, I was in the shower getting ready for work when I heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Just as I got downstairs we saw that another had hit the second tower.

It has been 10 years since that day. Emotions were so heightened for everyone across the world, and so mixed. We were feeling anger, intense sadness, disbelief, confusion, helplessness, fear, and an overwhelming sense of unity for a while.
That day brought firefighters and what they do to into a spotlight. As we watched them on TV, saw images in newspapers and magazines of those firefighters trying to find and save people, my understanding of them deepened.
These are people who are willing to risk their own lives to help others daily. They go to work each day prepared to do that. They love doing it.
Suddenly, fire trucks and engines brought up emotions for me. As I waited at traffic lights and watched them pass, displaying their United States flags, tears of pride would flow.

Firefighters have always been special,  but after 9-11 they were lifted higher. The images of firefighters covered in soot and ashes at Ground Zero, the pictures of fire engines destroyed in the collapse of the towers, those pictures tell the story. These guys went in, and they went in intending to save people.
They really are heroes.

My hero with a group of heroes from our local fire district.

Another shot of him, in dress uniform during a Veteran's Day ceremony.

Today, at the end of our worship service at church, we honored the memory of that day. Our music director wrote a song and performed it as scene after scene from the Sept. 11, 2001 tragedies was displayed on the two screens that hang above the communion table. I had not forgotten it, but the images brought up the emotions again. I was intensely sad. For so many reasons. Tears flowed, and I even heard some behind me sobbing.
It's a cliche, I know, but the world changed that day. The whole world. The WHOLE world. Some of it changed for the better. Some of it, I believe, changed for the worse.

One of the things I saw that day, and in the days that followed, was how a nation could come together and truly be united. It was fleeting; it only lasted for a short time. Eventually politics took over, but for a little while we really were united. People who had never met before were crying together and holding hands as patriotic music played. All over the country, there were people who volunteered to go to New York to help with search and rescue efforts. Some of them from 3,000 miles away. Everyone wanted to go. We all wanted to do something. Little kids collected pennies, old women made patriotic hats and gave the proceeds to the rescue efforts. So many, and I mean many, stood in line for hours to donate blood, we reached deep in our pockets to donate to the Red Cross, and we prayed.

It was beyond words.

Now, 10 years later, my prayer is still the same. I pray that our young children won't have a kitchen sink story to tell. I pray that human beings will realize that love is waiting for them. That love is an answer to hatred and violence. I pray that every child in every country will know that God is in their heart, and that love is waiting there to blossom and heal everything.