lunesque | (no subject)

In an instant, their hopes and dreams were gone, lost to the ages for all eternity.
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Of everything I've ever done, this assignment has stilled my pen. It stopped my singers heart from throwing out lyrics, calmed my poets soul from reciting sonnets; kept my characters from leaping off the bridge together. It kept all the romantic words in my mouth, stopped the prose from ever being a conscious thought. It shut my heart to all of life's pleasures, of love and children and home.

Instead, it opened my mind to the pure strength of what is the human spirit.

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"I ask one thing, and one thing only. Not money, or blood. I'm not from the Red Cross, I'm not a foundation; I'm not a charity. I don't ask for the bread from your family's mouth, or your heart on a platter. I don't ask for your lost
time, or for your every prayer. I ask for one thing, and one thing only, that any human being can do.

Let your children remember.

When they ask, one day, "Mommy, daddy, what were the twin towers?" don't dismiss your child. Don't sweep aside the people lost, the country devastated, the agony a single thoughtless person has caused. Don't let the sound of the
millions of voices stopped in an instant hold your tongue. Don't let your fear walk you into the night, don't bend to the dark recesses of the forgotten.

Don't let your children grow without knowing the horror, the devastation, the agony of what a thousand screams experienced. Don't let them forget the people who died so you could be free. Don't let them forget the brave few who gave their souls for so many; to try and save the people who's spirits had already been snuffed out like a candle in the wind. Don't let them forget the day the strongest nation in the world fell into its darkest hour.

No. On this night, this hallowed night, let your heart scream in rage, in fury, in disbelief, in sadness. And remember. Remember this tragedy, and grow from it. Remember the morning the sky fell, remember the screams that filled the air
and the tremble that raced through your heart. Remember the exact spot you were when you learned that our country had been attacked; remember the frantic beating in your chest, the fear in your throat, the pain in your soul. Learn from it. Through every agony comes knowing, understanding, written in the very
thud of every heart that beats on this earth. Look back. And remember."