Every year on this day, the ‘America was love and brotherhood on 9/12/01’ memes get plastered on social media. I can understand people who were children on 9/11 thinking this. The adults saying it need to do some serious reflection about how they experienced the day and weeks after 3000 people were murdered on live television.

On 9/11, I fell down our stairs and broke my toe. On 9/12, my husband drove me to the Doctor for x-rays. There was no reason to drive myself with the wrong foot, because nobody went to work that day. The streets were nearly empty. The Doctor’s office employees were silent. The TV in the waiting room was off. Nobody made chit chat. America was shell shocked.

On 9/12, I still couldn’t get my brother who lives in DC on the phone. He got word to us that he was ok via friends, but we were still terrified for his wife who worked in government buildings.

The day after 9/11, everyone was numbly waiting for another attack.

The Friday after 9/11, I had a work convention in Gatlinburg. There were so many non-show attendees that they nearly cancelled the event. In the end, they cancelled the Friday and Saturday night social activities. The husband and I slow danced in an empty ballroom to silence.

The weeks that followed had people being followed, threatened, assaulted and killed because their skin wasn’t white, they wore turbans or they prayed differently.

Oh man, yeah, it was just so great how Americans united after 9/11 is nostalgia for the aftereffects of tragedy.

9/11 sucked. So did 9/12.