Dear America,

Today you mark a day which many will never forget. September 11 is a day scarred by the most cowardly act of external violation on your precious soil. Lives were murdered. Fear ran rampant. You were forever changed, but still out of that utter darkness came rays of hope. September 11 is a day, now of service and commemoration, as your people do what they’ve been known to do, and that’s do their best as flawed humans to snatch the good out of the worst situations.

Really, in retrospect, America, that’s been the overriding story of your existence. The worst comes, even if you create it yourself, and inadvertently brings along the best with it. Whether it be from your founding fathers who made the trek across the sea to settle as they fled their version of oppression, to those same founding fathers implementing a terrible, new-fangled form…