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The long-awaited dawn finally appeared the morning after 9/11. Most of the country had gotten little, if any, sleep. The Twin Towers lay in mountains of rubble. The Pentagon smoldered around the collapsed section of the E Ring. A remote stretch of land in Pennsylvania was scarred and blackened, the debris field barely recognizable as the remains of a passenger jet. Official information was hard to come by, and no one yet had any accurate count of the number of victims. We watched and listened in dismay for a word from our President and First Lady. At that moment, they were the Father and Mother of the United States. We wanted Mrs. Bush to comfort us, to stand as a quiet pillar of strength as when we were children and looked to our mothers for calm reassurance when frightened. Like to our own fathers, we longed for President Bush to reaffirm our conviction that what had just happened to us was unacceptable and would be dealt with swiftly and decisively. The rising sunlight revealed the black cloud that could be seen from space still hovering over New York. Weary searchers continued to frantically clamber over concrete and steel, listening for signs of life. The horror of the day before still left our mouths agape and tears in our eyes. Then, something began to change in our neighborhoods, towns and cities. Across the country, diners and delis filled to capacity as people sought the company of others. Parents, grandparents, siblings and cousins picked up the phone to call one another and say, "I love you." Co-workers stopped to buy extra doughnuts and coffee to share around the office. Children were kept home from school just so the family could spend time together. Anyone with special training in search and rescue or first response was on the way to New York however they could get there. The nation stood poised for a single word of what was needed at Ground Zero. Food? Done! Clean water? Done. First aid kits? Already boxed and ready to go. People who had not set foot in a church in years joined prayer vigils, lit candles and tried to send comfort and strength across the miles to those in need. We waived at one another on the streets because it felt right. We smiled at every youth because it seemed on that day they were the most precious gifts our country had. The nation's defense system was at DEFCON 3, and we swelled with pride as every soldier reported to his or her duty station, rigid with the determination that not one more of us would perish at the hands of the enemy. We will never forget 9/11 and the price paid by nearly 3,000 people to the terrorists. We should not forget September 12, 2001, and the fact that we were not terrorized but galvanized. What changed the morning after the attacks was our perception of ourselves. We were not Democrat or Republican, rich or poor, gay or straight, black, white or latino. There was only one word that described us on that day: American. That word encompassed everything that we were as a nation and as a people. It meant that each and every one of us mattered.
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