Today

John and I were married on August 11, 2001. I remember waking up one month later excited to celebrate our one month anniversary but we didn't do any celebrating that day. I heard John coming home from work and he stopped in the hallway outside our apartment talking to one of our neighbors. I couldn’t hear the exact words that were spoken but I could tell that something had happened. Something big.

John told me what little he knew and we turned on the radio (we didn’t have a TV at the time), and we tried to piece together what happened. The reporters didn’t know exactly what had happened yet. I don’t think it was until the end of the day that I really figured out what happened. It was devastating. I didn’t know anyone personally involved, but the knowledge that people would willfully do this shook me.

September 12 was different. The day started out feeling terrible, but as I drove to class that day things changed. One of the radio stations switched to only playing partiatoic songs, and as I drove through neighborhoods listening to songs about our country I saw every house with a flag flying in front. There were blood drives going on everywhere, competing businesses were working together to raise money for the relief effort. Instead of our country being torn down, it felt like we were being built up. We are United as a country.

A few months later I went to hear a lecture that was given by a social worker who went to New York to help in the aftermath. She was at Ground Zero when a flag was pulled out of the wreckage. As she watched, words from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow came to her mind.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
God is not dead nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.

So I fly my flag today. Proud of our country and knowing that God does not sleep, but that he can build us up after any calamity.