Ten Years On

Ten years ago today I was on holiday with my husband. We were broke so we'd got a cheapo deal to Tunisia. The hotel was basic, the food was dire, but it was our first anniversary on the 16th so we wanted to do something special to commemorate it. We had only been there a day or two when, passing through the TV area, a gathered crowd caught our attention. We stopped and joined their number just as the second plane hit the world trade centre.

I will never forget that day. I cannot forget the moment that I recognised the structural damage and stresses on the Twin Towers and muttered those immortal words: "Those buildings are going to come down." It has left me with a strange sort of guilt that I can't quite explain and it's a guilt that still makes my blood run a little cold. Even now, ten years later, whenever I see footage of the attack, or even just see images of the Towers in movies and on TV, I am transported back to that day and it still causes a lump to rise in my throat and a tear to form in my eye. I feel that same sense of powerlessness and there's a weight that rests on my heart for the thousands of people who lost their lives, and the families that had to carry on without them.

After we returned home from that holiday, I remember writing about the tragedy. I wrote about how it made me feel and about my hopes for the future. Everyone was already saying that this event was a game changer; I hoped that would be the case. I hoped that the scale of the tragedy would make terrorism (on any level) so unthinkable, that innocents would never again have to die in the name of a cause they were not connected to. I also hoped that the reaction of the Western World would be mighty and that it would be etched in the memories of foreign nations forever so they would know not to mess with us again. But I desperately wanted it to be the right response, one that was reasonable and measured and one that punished those responsible rather than the innocent.

What we hope for so rarely comes to fruition.

But there's still time.

As we look back and remember where we were and how we felt and as we remember the innocents that died, and the wider impact of those deaths, lets not forget the time between now and then, the good that has come out of 9/11, and also the evil. As we remember the 2,977 victims of that day, we should also remember the thousands that have lost their lives or suffered injury since then as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let us also think of the terrible things that happen every day, from events that have a national impact like the 7/7 bombings or the recent riots, to the things that you don't always hear about like robberies, assaults and rapes. For the sake of the victims of 9/11, let us take our anger, our outrage and our fear and turn it into something more productive. Let's live our lives in a way that makes our world a better place; the only way that will happen is if we choose to be compassionate, considerate and thoughtful towards each other.