9/11, Thirteen Years Later

Like that other 9/11, I’m teaching today.
Like that other 9/11, the sky is perfectly blue.
Like that other 9/11, I was happy to get up and have a class to teach. Life was good, then and now.

But the world is different. Our lives changed, our culture changed. Our hearts changed. There is more fear. And because of that, more anger.

I used to look at the broken window in my house and remember how lucky I was to have survived.

One of many memorials for those who died on 9/11/01. This one is in Springfield, Mass.

My whole family survived when so many did not. Not all of my clients or students were as lucky.  It took me a long time to be able to ride the Metro again. Overcoming fear is a small price to pay when you can still walk and see and hug the ones you love. Now we have to overcome a bigger fear. Fear of trusting again. Fear of accepting someone different from us. Fear of a religion we don’t understand. We each have choices to make, today, thirteen years after September 11, 2001. Make them in love. Make them with an open heart. It’s all you can do, but it will change the world.

—-Quinn McDonald lived just three miles from the Pentagon in 2001. Now she lives 2,500 miles west of it, but she still sees fear and suspicion and anger.