Twenty-Five

 Herself speaks.

It has been twenty-five years since the planes crashed into the twin towers.

I remember where I was when I heard:  I had just parked down the block from the grade school, and was walking Offspring the First and Offspring the Second to class (Offspring the Third being too young to go to school yet), when another mother just ahead of me on the sidewalk said something about it. It didn't seem possible or too serious, yet.

Oh, how little we knew then. 

The unimaginable unfolded over the course of the morning, and by the time I fetched Offspring the First and Offspring the Second at the end of the school day, the world was never the same. 

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It is still horrifying to see photographs from September 11. The World Trade Center and New York City, the Pentagon, the Flight 93 field. It will never not be shocking. I always think of the statement by Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars, when he says: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." The ghosts from that day, in those places, will forever remain. 

We remember the lost, and we honor them. 

Godspeed.