Save the corny title options for this post, I'll spare you the gags and go with: My 9/11 Post.

Save the corny title options for this post, I'll spare you the gags and go with: My 9/11 Post.

It's been eight years since that crazy morning in NYC. The day when tragedy shook our country like nothing my generation had ever experienced. Something I, personally, never fathomed witnessing for the duration of my lifetime or that of my future children or grandchildren.

Perhaps I was naive to have this mentality. The mind set may be attributed to the fact the I was merely a wee sophomore in high school, but is that really an valid mask to live behind? To not have even the slightest inclination that something of this magnitude, this devastatingly crushing could happen a couple thousand miles away, was it blissful ignorance or a lack of information? I won't go delving into my preventive political viewpoints, not today at least.

It was a day just like any other, except for some strange reason my big sister, Sandi, and I didn't listen to the radio that morning on our way into school. We were religious about our morning radio shows. Today was different. For some strange reason it was different. Looking back, I probably would NOT have wanted to go to school (which was a rather conservative, Republican high school. Public, but conservative) for fear I'd miss out on developments in the cause, the counts, the efforts. As I walked into my Algebra classroom, the TV was on, the students were quiet and my teacher was sobbing. The image on the screen will remain burned in my mind for as long as I live. That tower, crumbling like a sand castle to the ground. Straight to the ground. My heart stopped.

Here comes the second plane. It's gut-wrenching and completely true that a comparable number of tears have been shed in the publishing of this very post as were had on that one morning, eight years ago today.

Take time to cherish your loved ones more today than you already do every other day. Be sappy and reverent and hopeful and grateful. With each year we get stronger and the wiser for having endured the ongoing adversities of the world.

Don't ever forget.