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\nOn September 11, 2001 at 8:00am CT, I was getting ready for work. As was my habit, the clock radio that woke me an hour earlier was tuned to the local news station so I could catch the traffic and weather, as well as a few headlines. The weather would be good and traffic would be bad. Typical Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
I half heard the station broadcasters excitedly talking about New York and the Twin Towers. I had only been half paying attention, being distracted with the mundane tasks of getting my son ready for school \u2013 he was again running late – and making and packing our lunches. I was confused and started to listen harder, initially wondering if they were referring to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Then, I realized this was real time news. I turned on the TV and saw the smoke billowing from the South Tower.<\/p>\n
At that moment, the phone rang. My friend was in her car on her way to work, listening to the news and as confused as I had been. As we spoke, as I was trying to describe and make sense of what I was seeing, the North Tower was hit.<\/p>\n
This was not an accident. This was on purpose. I screamed, then told her \u201cA passenger jet just crashed into the World Trade Center. Oh my God, we\u2019re at war\u201d.<\/p>\n
On that day, standing in my living room, thinking of my eleven-year-old son, of how the world he was about to grow up in had just been irrevocably changed, I cried.<\/p>\n
I cried for him, for what he had just lost, for the way of life that was now a memory, for the country that I loved. I cried in fear of what would happen next. Would Chicago be hit? Would there be fighting in the streets of America? Was this going to become the nuclear war we were taught to fear as we hid under our desks in school when I was eleven?<\/p>\n
Then, I stopped crying. Whatever was to come would come, and I would fight, kill or die to protect my son. That thought, that resolve comforted me and gave me strength. No matter what, he would get a chance to grow up. My brilliant, beautiful boy, on the cusp of becoming a young man, would grow up. I swore it on my life.<\/p>\n
Twenty years later on the anniversary of 9\/11, I was standing in front of a monument that didn\u2019t exist on that bright September day. There, on cold black granite were the names of sons and daughters, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters. More than 7,000 of those names were there because of that one, terrible day twenty years before.<\/p>\n
My son, my bright, remarkable, challenging, trouble-making, obstinate, loving, messy, forever running late, beautiful boy, the reason for every breath I took, grew up and chose to serve this Nation that was changed that day when he was eleven years old. He swore his own oath, to protect and defend me and this country. There, etched in the granite of the monument that didn\u2019t exist on the bright September day twenty years earlier, was my son\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
On that day 20 years after the world was changed, the war that was begun by the destruction of the Twin Towers was over and I was struck by a macabre personal symmetry. He was eleven years old when the first 9\/11 started the war, and on that first 9\/11 after the war, it had been eleven years since his name was added to those solemn, silent slabs. Perhaps because of the way the war ended, for too many the memory of that horrible, bright September day seemed to have grown dim. But I remembered as I read the names alongside that of my son\u2019s.<\/p>\n
On that 20th anniversary, I made a new oath to my son. I swore to fight, kill, or die to protect what I have left of him, his memory. Each year on the anniversary of that day that changed the world, the anniversary of the day that set in motion the events that changed my world, I reaffirm this new oath. My son will continue to be the reason for every breath I take, until my last.<\/p>\n
I upheld that first oath. My son grew up. I swear I will keep this oath as well. He, and all the others, will be honored and remembered. So help me God.
\nDenise Williams<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"