I'd sooner forget my own name. · 5:20pm Sep 11th, 2013

Hello, adventurers... I know that everyone and their dog tends to make sappy posts about 9/11 on Facebook today, and I don't know why I haven't seen any blog posts about it yet today here on fimfiction, but I'd like to be one of the first.

Now don't worry, I'm not going to bore you to death by simply spouting loud cliches to your face or force you to sit down and be guilt-tripped into reading something oppressive and gloomy... But this is a topic very close to my heart, and in the spirit of most of my fictional writing, I'd like to simply share my experience regarding the matter. A testimony of what I feel and know about this day. I may be releasing a very special bonus chapter of Happy Adventuring, as well, though I'm not entirely certain. Talking about what happened on September 11th, 2001 has brought me to tears several times while writing this, largely because of the fact that this disaster struck the day before my seventh birthday, and ON the birthday of several of my friends. So, for every year that I get to celebrate another year of life and growth, the celebration is always prefaced by death and mourning. Ladies and gentlemen, for the commemoration of the lives lost in the malicious attack and presented to be read at your discretion, I offer you my personal testimony of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

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I was struck by a humbling and serene thought today... It was exactly 12 years ago today that my mother came and pulled me out of school, knowing that she and my father would want to tell me what had happened, themselves. I was just a little 1st-Grader, excited to be leaving school early and looking forward to my birthday the following day. I was too young to understand anything more than that there were big explosions on TV, and first found myself amused at the spectacle... Until my mother informed me that there were people inside those buildings. People dying. In that moment, the reality of it all sunk into my little (almost) seven-year-old brain all at once. That day was forever embedded into my memory.

Every year, on the day before my birthday, for the past 12 years, I am given a humbling reminder of how beautiful and terrible the human race can be. Of the hard, unyielding reality that I am so often so far detached from.

But for every tale of woe, every moment of footage of the horrendous act that scarred our nation's past, I remember that there is a tale of a survivor who made it out alive, of some beautiful human being who was willing to both risk and give life and limb in their efforts to save another. Amidst such grief and pain comes some of the most exquisite joy that I can feel at being human and counted among the same race as those immeasurably beautiful people. I would urge you all to take a moment today and, if you find yourself crushed beneath the grief and memories that so often oppress our minds on this day, just find a survivor's story. Learn the name of one of those brave firefighters or policemen. Remember the brave souls on United Airlines Flight 93, who would rather knowingly sacrifice their own lives before allowing those of others to be taken.

We will NEVER FORGET THEM, because in our darkest hour, they kept the light of love shining. And now, when our hearts are dark with grief, whether they are living or dead, their stories are immortalized alongside those destroyed towers, forever bringing hope to the day that not only shook a country to its foundations, but eternally changed and sometimes even ended the worlds of hundreds and thousands. I know that my world and my view of life was forever altered that day.

12 years, and I know that there will be many more to come. Those not old enough to remember may be coming to age and experiencing it through some kind of record. They'll treat the day with respect and remember that there was a disaster, as they should. But I was there the day that America was struck by the unthinkable... I was a child when America wept. It changed me forever, and I WILL NEVER FORGET.

We... will never forget.