Where were you?

I want to stop for a moment today, in particular. Today is September 11th 2011. For most people we associate it now with the Twin Towers in New York coming down in horrifying blaze.
I want to tell you where I was on 9/11 2001. I have a need to tell, really.

I was in bed when Shafique turned on the radio as he does every morning. And all of sudden he jumped out of bad and yelled to me "Something happened!". Esa my beautiful baby boy was sleeping peacefully next to me, and I got out of bed and took him with me downstairs where on TV, we were watching a building on fire. No one knew really what was going on but we could all see that it was serious. And in between the channel switching, trying to figure out what was going on, I was feeding Esa and sitting on the edge of the sofa. They had a live feed of the Tower One burning when I saw a plane behind the towers. I am thinking to myself  that it's odd that this is not a no-fly zone at this moment. And as that thought passes, the second plane flew into the other tower. A tower filled with fathers,brothers, mothers. I sat there all day on that sofa, watching and listening. The plane that went down in Pennsylvania, the one that went into the Pentagon. It felt like the world as we knew it was ending. I sat and watched as people were jumping out of the window. I watched as President Bush told the world that he would get these people "dead or alive".
More than anything I knew the world is never going to be same ever again. I knew that Esa would grow up in a world different than the one I grew up in.
The blood trail that started in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania went further into Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan.

I pray for all the lives lost, for the families who have lost a loved one. May Allah grant us all peace and solace. Ameen