IN MEMORIAM.

I didn’t think visiting the 9/11 memorial would affect me this much. As I trailed my fingers over the engraved names of the many lives cut short, I couldn’t help but recall where I was at that moment. I was six years old when the attacks happened. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my mom when the phone started to ring. At the time, I was too young to comprehend the magnitude of the events, but I understood from the immediacy of my mom’s tears that something terrible had happened. That much I knew. From the tone of her cries, in that moment I thought, “Dad must be dead.” What else could cause her this much distress? I remember her running to turn on the television, only to view in horror as the second plane hurtled towards the towers. I couldn’t grasp it at the time, but in looking back I recognize that it was in this moment that my innocence was lost. Call me naive, (I was; erm, am), but before that day I had truly believed that ALL people strove to be a source of light and love in the darkness of the world. I had never seen something so… horrible. In that moment, my young eyes were opened to the savagery of mankind. In that moment of terror, the world changed. And I changed too.

Aiden Long

5.12.17