We will never forget.

Photo by Ira Block - compliments of @natgeo

15 years ago I was sitting in an eighth-grade classroom next to my teacher and classmates. All of our eyes were glued to a box television - the old-school kind, perched atop a metal frame with wheels on the bottom so that it could be easily moved about. On the screen two thin skyscrapers, glinting silver in the late summer sunlight, poured steady streams of grey-black smoke into the sky. And then the first tower fell.

For all of those who were lost on that day - in planes, in stairwells, in an attempt to help others - we will never forget. For all of those who were affected by the hysteria that followed 9/11, for those who were beaten, for those who were bombed, for those who would be forced to endure years of hatred and discrimination because of where they were born or what they looked like or how they worshiped, we will never forget.

Let us not turn on each other, but raise each other up in times of suffering.

Love is the only answer.

♥