My Mom

My mother and I were best friends. We weren't always that way. I was a typical teenager, the world was always ending and I hated most everything especially my mom. I look back at my teenager years, and never want a daughter because I see what I put my mom through in those years. Now, I imagine if my mom was here she would say that if she had a choice she would do it all over again.
I don't know when we became friends. At 18, I went to college. I remember that a few weeks after I moved out she redecorated my room at home. I was so mad. I also remember my first night at college. I was on a chair hanging something up something and fell and sprained my ankle. I called home in tears. I was hurt, I was homesick. Little did I know until later that after that phone call, my mom cried to my dad that she wanted to go pick me up and bring me home because she hated seeing me so sad. My father passed away when I was a junior in high school. I remember going home for the funeral and sleeping on my father's side of the bed so that my mom wouldn't be alone. I needed to be there, she needed me to be there. I will not lie. I won't say that my mom and I became bestfriends after that. My father passed away in November of '99, my junior year. I decided to move back home that summer to spend it with my mom. She was not thrilled about that idea. I was not known as the black sheep of the family, but maybe the trouble maker? The loud mouth? The never relax, drama queen? My mom wasn't sure that she could handle the world wind that I was. I was hurt but I went home anyways. I slept on my father's side of the bed most of that summer. She needed me, I needed her.

9/11

I was driving home from my current boyfriend's house and when I heard something about IT on the radio, I don't even think I really heard it. There were other things on my mind. I got back to apartment, was getting ready for a shower with the TV on in my room. Planes had crashed into the World Trade Centers. My roommates and I were glued to the tvs for the rest of the day. Two of my 3 roommates were from New Jersey with friends and family in New York City. Everyone seemed to have a personal connection to the attack. My parent's generation were always able to remember where they were when JFK was shot. We will all remember where we were on September 11, 2001.
I was going to say that even though I started this post saying where I was, that it was important to remember that that day wasn't about me or where I was but it was about bigger things. And you know what? It was about bigger things but it was also about me, and about you, and about each individual in this country we live in. America is a country that is about individuals, about each of our own rights, values, and freedoms. That is what the terrorists were attacking; each and everyone of one us.
Today though, I want to remember every one of those people who died that day. The people in the buildings, the firefighters who were the first on the scene, each and everyone of those people that were on those four fated planes. I want to take a moment and say a prayer for them. I also want a take a moment and thank every single soldier that is out there, whether in Irag, Afghanistan or somewhere else. Thank you. Thank you for putting your life on the line, so that I am allowed to be me without others imposing their wills on me. Thank you for insuring that I have freedoms, that I have rights. Thank you for the fact that I don't have to wear a veil on my head, or that I can leave the house without a male escort. Thank you that I am not forced to sew up my privates until a man of my parents choosing rips me open. Thank you for making sure in this country that female circumcision is not widely practiced. Thank you to all of the soldiers alive and those who have given lives for everything you do for us and for our country.