Sometime in the late Summer / early Fall of 2001, I had surgery on my left shoulder. It injured it playing football. It was a consequence of being a small boy playing a big man’s sport. The surgery mended ligaments that caused pain and slight dislocations. They immobilized the arm for several weeks, the number six coming to mind. Injuries always seem to take six weeks to heal. I was set free from my brace, only to jump into a routine of physical therapy. Physical therapy sessions took place in the predawn hours of the early morning.

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, I rose early and attended my scheduled physical therapy session. I remember little of what I did that morning. I only remember using a machine that is only described as a bicycle driven by arm power instead of legs. As I climbed into my mom’s car after changing clothes, she told me that a plane hit the World Trade Center.

My first thought was to ask, “The World Trade Center? How did a plane hit that?” I was thinking of the wholesale shopping center near downtown Dallas by the same name. It is a much smaller building and inconceivable that a plane should have struck it. The radio broadcast’s next words would shatter that misunderstanding forever. “A second plane,” the radio host said, “has hit the Tower II of the World Trade Center in New York.” It was not an accident. America was under attack.

A few minutes later my mom would drop me off at school. I was in the tenth grade at the time, a sophomore in high school. The entire school gathered in the atrium before the first bell rang each day. This morning was different. Every student I spoke to wore the same stunned and shocked expression upon their faces. I can only imagine the same look plastered across my face. A reflection of the confusion and worry storming within.

What was going on? Who would do such a thing? What would it mean for our future? These questions were on every student’s mind the rest of the day as we sat in class after class. We pretend to listen to lectures of little consequence. The morning’s events weighed upon our hearts and minds. Some parents withdrew their students from school for the day. The feeling that a terrorist attack could strike at any time was in the air.

Reflecting now, I can only pity and feel heartfelt compassion for our teachers that day. What must have passed through their minds? What emotional turmoil must they too have been dealing with? What loved ones did they have cause to worry about?

They did their best to insulate us from the historic events taking place that day. They worked hard to make that day like any other. Of course, it wasn’t a normal day. It changed everything. As we would all learn as we got home from school and turned on the news.

Terrorists weaponized passenger planes. They flew them into the iconic Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon. Another, Flight 93, hijacked over Pennsylvania, would crash in a field. The heroes aboard that flight fought back against the terrorists.

When I first think about September 11th, 2001 the memories most Americans hold in common come to mind. President Bush sitting in the classroom, video footage of the towers coming down, President Bush’s speech at Ground Zero, the shared sense of unity we experienced, and the profound kindness of strangers.

Above it all, I remember sitting on the swing set in our backyard that afternoon. I was alone in the yard reflecting on the day and thinking about what in the world was going on. I sat there for what seemed like hours to me. I sat there still and silent, staring into the bright blue cloudless sky above our home. It struck me that for the first time in my life I was looking at a sky vacant of any trace of aircraft. No chem-trails, no shining dots swooping across the sky. Nothing. Not a single thing in the skies above America.

What a microcosm of the entire day. What began like any other day, ended with the skies all across the country empty and bearing the mark of the day’s events. We were forever changed. Life in America would never return as it had been hours before.

Never forget was the vow America made that day. It is a vow worth keeping alive. A vow every one of us is responsible for maintaining. We must hold the memories of the lost within our hearts. We must honor their sacrifice with our lives. Lives lived to the fullest out of gratitude and appreciation. We must never forget.