Places Heavy on The Heart.

In my preparations for New York I preplanned everything so we would not miss a thing and one of the go to places was Ground Zero. This post may be all on Ground Zero and I am completely okay with that, a place like that deserves at least that much.

We were off to Ground Zero that morning and be warned if you ever go it is kind of a confusing place to go down there even if you have your Google Maps! It was confusing just due to the fact that there is much construction going on down there with the new towers that are getting put up. We were still a bit early so we wondered a bit downtown and just admired the height of these buildings. Being from Northern Canada there is nothing compared to the height of these buildings and you cannot be walking around downtown Manhattan without being amazed by ingenuity that went into these massive skyscrapers.

So here we were two tourists walking around downtown Manhattan in awe of what was sure to be the biggest and highest buildings we had ever seen and my boyfriend who is terrified of heights was just not loving the experience at all. Off to Ground Zero we went, took us a while to locate the place where you go and pick up the tickets to go into the memorial because I was a bit lost at first because there is the memorial and then there is the museum. We wandered over to the museum first by

passing the place to get the tickets completely ignoring it and learned that we had passed the ticket place and then turned around. A little story about how this guy was giving out coupons to this place that had "the best bagels in New York", no being the little fatty I was genuinely curious about what the bagel was offering but since my boyfriend was paranoid as hell so we kept on walking. Needless to say I did not get to eat the best bagel in New York, come to think of it I didn't even it one!

This is where the story gets a little sad, we walked on towards the 911 memorial and it was early in the morning so not a whole lot of people there, another piece of advice if you are ever in NYC and want to visit the memorial go to the memorial early! We were there early enough to not have to deal with any of the lines although the lines and sections they had up made me glad we were not there to see it when it was in full force. Every time I think about how this visit went it always makes it feel like there is a heavy weight in my heart and my stomach. Walking through the 911 memorial going to the pools, seeing all the people, seeing the way that Manhattan transformed from gritty and dirty streets to this serene almost environment. There were trees every couple feet, you could here the distance of the water falling in the infinity pools not to far away, you were walking on a combination of gravel and cement. We walked up to the infinity pools and with a heavy heart we walked around reading all the names. You could see peoples family names, you saw people who were co-workers, friends, family and strangers, all died because some sick and twisted plot. The thing that made me cry standing right there and then was the names that jumped out at me the most, every so often you would be walking reading the names and you would read: Mrs. Jane Doe and her unborn child. UNBORN child?!?! This made me SO sad! I couldn't believe that they would put something like that on these pools, it was hard to read. All these women, all these families expecting their first, second, third, or whatever child, a child who never got to meet their parents, a child who never got to experience the life that we take for granted daily. A child who never got to learn to love, learn to play but above all just learn to live.

It was there when you see the names of the most innocent beings in this world, died all on an early September morning. It was in that instance where all the little things that you may feel bother you or may effect your life because you allow it to just seems small and insignificant. Seeing those names, not just the women and their child but all names you take a step back and realize that the life you live is great, wonderful, sometimes stressful but a miracle none the less.

This is not the most entertaining blog post, but it is one that doesn't need jokes or tidbits, it is one that needs to stand on its own and have its own message.