[AtLast]

Just returned home from NYC. I had visited family and friends there with my lover and her son. We did the tourist stuff (first visit to the Big Apple for them, both). So, we were in the Towers quite a bit for all of the summer activities as well as it was on the route to so many tourist areas.

Her son called me from school in a panic to tell me about the planes hitting. Then, I was totally taken over by fear of my friends and relatives being possibly killed or hurt. Some were (friends, friends of friends, friends of my relatives).

I know that there are horrible things happening around the world just about everyday. People in many countries that live with this kind of threat on a daily basis. However, when people talk about 9/11 in a way that dismisses the horror of what people experienced, in NYC, in the towers, or as friends/relatives with someone that died or was hurt that day, it pisses me off. It indeed, hurts my feelings and serves no purpose in bringing us to peace.

No, this attack is no more horrible or worse than any other terror attack or other pointless killing of innocent people throughout the world. And we here, in the US need to recognize this- we lived a long time outside of the terror so many experience, but, how I feel and others with a direct connection, do have a hard time on this day. Now, I also believe we need to fight the ugly hate that some people in the US are spouting about Muslims and Islam (and many other cultures, worldwide). In fact, I believe that this is critical because this did not happen in a vacuum. The US has done some of its own ugly worldwide, but, nothing, not one single thing makes these kinds of attacks on any people a justified act.

I wish our lesson would take us to understanding Islam and respecting it. And I hope that respect is displayed for those lost that day here- and thoughts about worldwide victims of terror. many that died in the Towers, were Muslim.

To me, healing is not forgetting, and not taking revenge. It is supporting ways to combat the kind of hate that is responsible for such acts. The US has a long way to go to do this. Please support curriculum change in our schools concerning teaching our young people about Islam and other positive ways the US, as a nation of goodwill can correct our negative history against Islam. Can we not be pro-active and admit our trespasses and change things?

I know, I'm such a hokey idealist... but I am so tired of rhetoric that divides the US and serves no positive purpose in getting at the real problem, here.