Photos of the Millennium.

I remember when I was in New York and my mom and I made a long trip to ground zero. We made plenty of mistakes on the subway and had trouble finding it because of all the construction. By the time we were finally there I was just exhausted and had no interest in being there. It was in the middle of December, windy, and misting outside. But when I reached the area where the buildings once stood, my heart sank. When you stand at the bottom of a building in New York and you take in it's enormity you feel so small and a little helpless. But standing where the Twin Towers once stood and you're only able to imagine the enormity of the buildings is an even worse feeling. I kept looking up and imagining the buildings and all the people. But sometimes it's easy to think of people as just...people. Things you pass everyday and background images of your life. When I finally looked down at the caved in part where they had made two fountains where the towers once stood and I saw the names of all of the people who died, is when I lost it. Reading a name and realizing that the woman might have had a daughter or son who had received the news or a husband or mom was just so horrifying. I cried so hard. I was too young to grasp the emergency of the situation on 9/11 when it occurred. But when I was actually at the location and reading the names, the sitaution became too real and too hard for me to handle.