A tribute

Every year on this day I like to take a moment to reflect. Many of you who read this blog know how much I adore New York City. I always say I grew up just knowing that I would fall in love with it at first sight, and I did. I just knew. It’s hard for me to explain, why I love a city so much.

My first trip was at the end of August in 2001, two weeks before September 11. We went to the top of the Statue of Liberty and my husband got this shot:

You can barely see the towers behind me and it still gives me pause.

Luckily my husband is as nuts about the city as I am, so we go often – really the only vacations we’ve ever taken are to New York (until this past summer). But it’s been more than a year since I’ve been there last and I miss it so.

Years back some friends and I visited and went to the Ground Zero Museum. If you are ever nearby I can’t recommend a visit enough – especially combined with the Memorial. It will rock your world.

Of course this day isn’t just about New York – it’s about D.C. and Pennsylvania and really the entire country. I know so many of us just wanted to go to any of those places and help that day/week/month. That’s why I don’t want to forget – our spirit is so BIG.

Today I’m sharing the photos from the museum that I always share on September 11. (I’ll be turning off comments on this one so we can just reflect.) And as always I’ll just let them do the talking:

            

Never forget

Every year on this day I post some of my photos from the Ground Zero Museum in New York City. If you’ve read TDC for awhile you know of our deep love for NYC. I fell in love, hard, with the very first trip. It was eleven years ago, less than two weeks before the terrorist attacks on our country.

I share these photos every year because they say so much more than words can.

I’ll let them do the talking:

We visited NYC a few months after the attacks and then the year after a few times, and on one trip I saw this note someone had written this note on one of the walls around Ground Zero. It really spoke to me, and still does:

I still pray for all of those affected that day – in D.C., Pennsylvania and New York. 

God Bless the USA!!

Never Forget

Many of you have noticed that I love New York City. It’s deep. I love it like I love a friend – I knew even before I ever visited that I would love it. I just knew.

And I was right. On my first trip to NYC almost exactly ten years ago, I feel in love with the city. Hard and fast.

We were there two weeks before our country was attacked. My hubby got a shot with the impressive towers behind me (we were at the Statue of Liberty):

You have to look really hard to see them. That is still so eerie to me. I swear over the years when I look at this picture, it’s harder to see them. Isn’t that crazy?

We’ve been back countless times since – we got married there too. We couldn’t think of a better place to do it and I would do it again a million times over. (Marry my husband and marry him in New York.) :)

Last summer I took a trip to NYC with some friends, and we spent an afternoon at Ground Zero. We went through the Ground Zero Museum and it was heart wrenching and so incredibly powerful. Like last year, I’d like to share some of the photos with you today.

I think I’ll share them on this day every year…because time can make us forgetful. Time can steal away how we felt on that day – the sorrow and the despair, and the pride that was positively bursting from each one of us.

We just can’t forget.

I’ll let the pictures do all the talking:

  

            

      

Every single person who died on that day – in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania -- and since then fighting for our country, is a hero in my eyes.

I am so proud to be an American.

God Bless America!