Today is the 10 year anniversary of the 9-11 attacks and I was thinking about where I was at the time.

Lydia, the kids and I were on a family vacation with her parents. Lydia's parents live in South Africa and had come to spend a month or so with our family. We all traveled to Pennsylvania to spend a week at a resort in the Poconos.

Our two boys, at the time eight and six years old, had spent the night with their grandparents in the condo next door. Our daughter, two at the time, stayed with us. I had gotten up early to makes some coffee and have a quiet morning. I remember that I had not slept well, as I was agitated and restless all night. I thought I was just nervous to not have our boys with us.

Anyway, I made coffee and turned on the the TV. I'm not sure what time it was, but it was right after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. I was stunned. No one was talking about an attack at this point. I think the idea was that it must have been some sort of accident.

Lydia came down a bit later and as we watched the news the second plane hit the buildings. The news people were confused and wondered if there was something wrong with air traffic control. Lydia immediately said, "It's a terrorist attack."

I realized she was right. It had never even crossed my mind that we would be attacked, probably like so many other Americans. For generations we have never seen war on our own soil and terrorism was something off in Israel or Ireland. Lydia, having grown-up in apartheid South Africa was very familiar with terrorist attacks; bombings, shootings, torching and riots. She had the worldview that I lacked to understand what was happening.

As we continued to watch and the news people started to realize what was going on, the buildings came down. I could not believe it.

The rest of the day was like walking in a dream. We were all stunned. There was nothing to say, nothing to chat about, nothing to do. Everything seemed irrelevant. We were in shock and so was the world around us. I remember that day being almost devoid of noise; no people, no voices, no music, no autos, no overhead jets—nothing.

I had been growing a beard over vacation. Being part Lebanese I thought it best to shave, which I did for fear of being mistaken for someone hostile to our country.

We went to bed the night before innocent and ignorant to the world we live in. We awoke to a new world and a new reality—one which we will never escape in our lifetime, one with less hope and less liberty. Many people died that day and with them our society's innocence died, too.