September 11, 2001
You cannot say September 11 without having a huge range of emotions run through you.
Where were you when...?
Who did you know?
Will it happen again?
How did we make it through?
September 11, 2001 was one of the saddest days in every Americans life.
My generation lost it's naivety.
We are not invincible.
Many people lost their loved ones and friends. I was lucky and everyone I was related to and loved that lived in Washington D.C. was safe.
However, the stories of loss and heartbreak were what affected me the most.
One in particular, that made the biggest and longest lasting impression on me was the person who is considered the first casualty of the World Trade Center attacks,
even though he was not the first to perish.
Fr. Mychal Judge.
He ran into the chaos.
Without any gear or even a hardhat.
He ran in to pray with or protect anyone who needed help or last rites.
Mychal was not afraid. He was brave and ready.
Ready to do what needed to be done or die trying.
His story is the one that will always be September 11.
As I tell my children, who were 2 and 8 months old in 2001 about that day, it is hard. They have grown up always hearing about it, but not really understanding what happened.
I have told them that our actions have consequences and affect not only ourselves, but others too.
That day, the actions of a few, over many decades, affected thousands, even millions of Americans.
But I also tell them that the actions of many on that day affect today.
Kindness gets carried like the wind.
Mychal Judge was a hero in his every day life.
He died doing what God led him to do.
Help others.
And I, ten years later, remember a man I never met.
His story is the one that will always be September 11.
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