September 11, 2001
I was nineteen years old when tragedy struck, while working at The Sentinel at Kennesaw State University I heard the news. As one of the students that was in the building where I worked, I noticed his face of alarm, tragedy had struck. The twin towers in New York City had disappeared as they had ever existed before, something that I had no idea would shape my future and that of my family, particularly my children. Later, I got married and my husband joined the military. We were at war with the world, not only with Iraq but Afghanistan and every single nation that supported the radical Muslims in the middle east.
It was perhaps twenty years later when I came to realize what had really happened, and it is many times, even impossible to realize the pain that was experienced on that day. I recently saw pictures of the twin towers, when they existed, people falling from the sky, bombs exploding in floors above, dust and cement all over Lower Manhattan, and it is yet heartbreaking…I find no other words, to come to closure with the past.
Many of the experiences in my adult life have been centered in memories that happened during my early years as an adult. I left home early, my land and my family, to the United States, a country that offered opportunities for me, opportunities that I could not find at home. When September 11 happened, everything changed for me, I lost my vision and my memories of childhood pretty much disappeared, I became a pawn in a cruel and lonely experience.
Today, August 13, 2025, I sit at a coffee shop in Albany, NY, making plans to fly again, not on an airplane but in my dreams, my dream to make New York City a home for my project, my project of life. Today, I remember my life as a distant but yet real memory of what happened, and what happened is that I overcame many obstacles, not for my children, not for my family’s desire to make something out of me, not for my friends left at home, but for me, a person with education and some knowledge of a second language that would carry me forward and never in the wrong direction.
Today, I want to remember why I am alive, because those who are gone are no longer with us and what matters is the present and the now. Physical pain is no longer something that I think about, material possessions are something fleeting, beauty is subjective, but the love for life, the love for other human beings, the desire to overcome is so much more powerful than anything.
Today, I want to remember that day, in which my life changed, without expectation, without reassurance, without desires, but with a heart of gold, a heart that pumps blood, lungs that allow me to breathe and a body that allows me to move. Many people in the world suffer tragedy and not until we suffer it with them are we allowed to judge. We have no idea, no clue as to what happens in someone’s mind and heart.
So today, I want to leave you with a challenge, forget others and be nice to yourself. Other opportunities will come, other people will come, and as long as we are mindful of our limits, we are allowed to be ourselves, colorful and beautiful overall.