In Memory of 9/11

It seems I'm the last one in the Jovi blog world to get to this, but here's my 9/11 tribute (blame the tardiness on west coast lag time ;))

Where were you eight years ago on this day? Were you at work, sipping a cup of coffee? Were you grumbling about having to get out of bed early? Were you struggling with your kids to get them ready for school? Fighting with your wife or husband about the latest miscommunication? Maybe you weren't in the States - already somewhere in your afternoon or evening, going about your day completely normally.

For everyone in America, though, whatever we were doing around 9 a.m. New York time was suddenly - and brutally - interrupted, and our lives changed forever.

I was still in bed, fast asleep, but started waking up as I became aware of very unnatural sounds coming from the television in my parents' room next door. Panicked reporters, stunned newscasters, screaming and crying from apparent interviewees. My mom said softly, "It's like a nightmare..." My dad muttered something and walked out of the room, past my doorway, and I knew something was wrong. I went into my mom's room to see her sitting up in bed, her hand over her mouth, crying. I followed her gaze to the television and saw the second World Trade Center engulfed in a sickening, billowing mass of smoke, before it collapsed to the ground right before my eyes. It was 6:26 a.m. (PST)

I never witnessed Pearl Harbor or World War II - or any war, really, for that matter, and stories from my parents' childhood of the Vietnam War and the Communist scares, etc. were always stories of another time. Another place. When horrible people did horrible things, innocent people were murdered, countries clashed with each other over religion and politics and territory. The world was good now, I assumed. I was fairly young - naive enough to believe that notion, anyway - and the idea of someone authorizing the hijacking of four American airliners to slaughter innocent civilians and assault our country in a mass suicide murder (and that people would actually DO it!) was beyond me.

I stayed home from school that day, watching the events unfold on the television, trying to make sense of it all as I saw things I had never seen before - and never wanted to see again. I remember a nauseating feeling of mixed anger and sadness, hurt and pain as I watched the effects of the heartless and cruel murderers who had done this. It wasn't for months, even years afterward, that I realized what an impact it all truly had on my life, and what a cruel world really does lie outside of my home walls.

My point, in this personal narrative, is that America suffered a massive loss that day. And all the aftermath - the pain, the grieving, the memorials, the tributes, and later the controversies and debates and whispers about U.S. government knowledge of the attacks - is a tangled mess that remains burned in all of our memories, if we were old enough to remember it. We were dealt a low blow. Hatred and anger are no strangers to me, but I've learned that they do no good - and in fact are the causing factors of the attacks on 9/11 in the first place!

Since then, I have been to Ground Zero, one of the most emotional experiences of my life. And it was then that the full impact hit me like a ton of bricks.

I hadn't discovered Bon Jovi at the time of 9/11, but I have definitely seen their tribute in Times Square, and the notions of united strength, liberty, and perseverance in the face of great tragedy that underscore Bounce are not lost on me. Bon Jovi has always been a true-blooded American band, proud of their country and flag, representative of the people that live the land. And every time I see this video or hear this song, I remember...and cry.

So please take a moment to watch it. Even if you've already seen it a hundred times. Even if the song is so over-played that it's boring, or is so under-played for a reason. And listen to the words in the simultaneously fierce and tender "Undivided". The more symbolic, hidden-beneath-another-story "Bells of Freedom".

Hatred from the outside will do its best to shove its ugly head in our world and turn it upside down. It did on September 11th, 2001. But instead of making our nation fall, it did the opposite. We cannot fall when an instigator harboring impure intentions tries to make us. But hatred from within WILL divide us. Don't let it.

Remember the day.

Unfortunately, my SkyDrive has been shut down for copyright violation apparently, so I can't share the MP3s. Sorry about that...but if you want the MP3 of 'America the Beautiful', email me and I will gladly send it to you.