Here we are my friend... hard to believe it's been 5 years since the tragedy of 9/11. I have been thinking a lot about the days surrounding that fateful moment lately. At the time, I was hosting a morning show on a rock station in the Philadelphia area, only 90 miles or so from the World Trade Center. A number of my listeners worked in the buildings and traveled back and forth each day from Philadelphia to New York. As the day's terrible events unfolded, it became abundantly apparent that this was no accident, but rather a pre-meditated act of mass murder, hatred and terrorism. My show was scheduled to end at 10 am, but by about 9:10am, it was clear that I would need to stay over and transform from my usual role as a mirth merchant to straight news reporter, gathering and relating the latest updates for our equally shocked and bewildered audience. I stayed on the air through the afternoon, but I hardly noticed the hours flying by. Before long, calls started coming in from my listeners who had somehow managed to get out alive. To say their tales were chilling would be a grand understatement. I will never forget the fear and confusion in their voices. Just sharing their experiences with me and the audience seemed to help calm them down, but I imagine their emotional scars will never quite heal. A particularly disturbing and horrific realization settled in later in the week. A friend of the station staff had just lost a young son in his early 20's the week prior in a car crash. She learned some days after 9/11 that her other son (also in his early 20's) had been killed in the collapse of the second tower. That week was his very first at his new job, and he was very excited and proud to be working at such a prestigious address. It was simply heartbreaking and beyond words. Out of all the unnecessary pain and suffering of 9/11, came something miraculous and worthwhile for all of us, though... we all started treating one another with more patience, understanding, kindness, tolerance and love... something we should have been doing all along. It taught us that a loved one, a friend, an acquaintance or a co-worker could easily be torn from our lives at any given moment. It taught us to savor and enjoy each moment with these people and to make sure that we are letting them know and demonstrating through our actions how much they mean to us, lest we never get another chance to do so. Anything that we as humans ever allow to hold us apart or disagree about seems so petty and trivial in light of what can and did happen.

"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
It's easy if you try"

John Lennon

After 9/11, the love and the understanding we showed others continued unabated for about 3 - 6 months. Slowly but surely though, it seems we all eventually started drifting back to our old ways. Bringing back the people killed cannot be done... changing history is impossible, too. Changing the present and the future for the better IS something we can accomplish together. The best way to memorialize the victims of 9/11 is for each one of us to take the lessons we learned that day and remember to keep applying them in our own lives every day of every year... instead of just for a few days or a few months. Our lives, our future and our world will be much better for it.