Remembering 9/11

I'm sure we can all remember where we were and what we were doing when the twin towers fell. I was in CEGEP, which is post high school studies but pre-university. I was waiting for my philosophy class to start when another student said that someone had flown a plane into a building in New York City. I thought he was joking. That day the administration rolled TVs on stands to various places throughout the building so people could watch the coverage. It was unbelievable, like a movie, not like something that was actually happening not so very far away.
At the time I had just started dating my husband, who is Egyptian. It was a day that changed life for many people, including Muslims and Arabs. As a WASC (white, Anglo-Saxon Catholic), I am pretty much as close to "acceptable" as one can be post 9/11 except that I'm not male or Protestant. My husband, on the other hand, is not. While he is Catholic he is also Arab and after 9/11, this did not sit well with many people. Before I met my husband, I had learned about racism but I had never had it hit so close to home. He's had a bus driver refuse to give him a transfer so that he could take another bus. The driver told him, "You people should walk." He's had a restaurant refuse him service because his kind wasn't welcome. He's had fellow passengers on a plane ask to have their seats changed (in front of him) so that they wouldn't have to sit next to him. These are just a couple of the slights my husband has had to endure post 9/11. I get so angry. My husband is more resigned. He says that if he let these things bother him, he'd never be able to sleep at night. It's better to let them roll off his back. I understand where he's coming from but it makes me sad that he has become resigned. That this is the way life is. It also makes me sad that when we got pregnant he hoped that our daughter would be more fair-skinned than him and that his parents urged us to give our daughter a different last name than my husband so that she could be spared problems later on having a Arab/Muslim sounding name.
For myself, I fear sometimes for my husband. I get nervous when he has to fly outside of the country. Maybe I've seen too many movies, but I worry that he'll be arrested for some non-existent crime and shipped off to some torture chamber in the Middle East. Or that he'll be mistakenly put on a no-fly list. It's for this reason that I have avoided traveling to the States. If I ever needed to go to the US, of course, we would go and my husband has traveled there for work but I wouldn't plan a vacation there.
I know that the goal of a terrorist is to inspire fear in people, to terrorize them in their daily life. You might say that I am letting the terrorists "win" but I think I'm being more cautious than anything else. If people in Canada can say and do mean or evil things to my husband, how much worse could it be elsewhere?
9/11 was a horrible day for so many people. It makes me sad for everyone. But at the same time a lot of good came of that day. People banned together to help, to give support. It's not the awful event that should be focused on but the good that was found and can still be found despite it.

PS. Happy birthday to my cousin! I always think of her on this day and how her birthday is often overshadowed!

PPS. Our chiro appointment yesterday went really well. Her sleep has slowly been getting better. Instead of getting up 6 or more times per night, she's down to 4 or less. I don't know if it's the adjustment or my own attitude or the prayers that are helping, but either way I'm grateful!