Remembering 9/11

April 2001. I vividly remember when we took this picture with the New York skyline behind us, the Twin Towers rising majestically in the background. This was the first time the entire family went to the US for a month-long vacation. It was actually my parents' 18th birthday present to me (yes, I chose this over a lavish debut party) but was a year delayed since my dad had to undergo a bypass operation in 2000.

We just came back from Liberty Island when this shot was taken. Earlier that day, we were actually at the Twin Towers and I remembered buying lots of Harry Potter stuff at the Warner Brothers store at the ground floor of one of the towers. It was a beautiful day and we said that we'd be back. But who knew that that would be our first and last time to see the Twin Towers?

5 months after our trip, on 9/11/01, 2 planes purposely hit the towers...an act of terrorism that no one ever imagined. I was just a few weeks away from my college graduation when that happened. I remember walking in my parents' room and upon seeing the footage of the towers burning on TV, I thought they were watching a movie. But I noticed the CNN logo on the corner and realized that it is real! My gad. Our initial thought was our cousins. Though they lived in New Jersey, they worked in New York. Very near the Twin Towers. We were very worried since we can't contact them but later that night, we were so relieved to finally hear that they were safe. Thank God. For weeks, the 9/11 attack was all you could see, hear and read in the news. It was indeed a nightmare that changed America forever.

5 years after, I found myself at Ground Zero and what was left was just a big gaping hole. The two majestic towers were no more and this spot will forever remind all of us of that fateful day.

There are a lot of 9/11 specials today as America remembers what happened 10 years ago and I happen to catch this documentary on cable entitled 102 Minutes - it featured the 102 minutes on the morning of 9/11/01 from the moment the first plane hit until both towers collapsed. Even if this happened a decade ago, seeing it again was just intense and I found myself tearing up all throughout the 3-hour special.

So many lives were lost and no words can even describe what those people directly affected went through. But what's amazing is how everyone united and helped in any way that they can. It took some time, but America recovered. They never lost hope. They moved on. But this nightmare will forever be part of their history.

This is one event that even if you're not an American, even if you were thousands of miles away from where it happened, but knowing that you have friends and even relatives who were there on that fateful day and being there yourself just a few months before the attack, would really touch and affect you in more ways than one.

9/11. We will never forget.