I was 4, but I remember. I remember crying. I remember being confused. And I remember watching the adults in my life break.

Someday, we will be teaching children of this event as something that happened in our history. We, as millennials, will be the last generation to be natives to this event. We are the last generation to live through it. We were impacted in a different way; we did not know what was happening, but in a way, we experienced it second hand, through our parents and mentors. We are the gap who was alive but had not yet lived enough to comprehend the dangers that were active in our world. On the 15th anniversary of the loss nearly 3,000 lives, my generation can reflect on this event as part of our own personal history, something we lived through. We watched the tragedy unfold on the TV. We could not comprehend what was happening, but we were present enough to understand that the world as we knew it was going to be changed forever.

Today we all have the opportunity to live through this secondhand. Ground zero is located in New York City at the sight of the attacks on the Twin Towers. This monument is as beautiful as it is unbearable. The solemnness that wraps around these two memorials where the towers once stood transports you back to that horrific day in 2001. In the middle of the city that never sleeps, a person is able to take a step away from the world and reflect on an act that reshaped America’s history. The silence that is everywhere in the memorial ties together each person who visits; you are taken back to a day that reunites every American. Just being in the presence of this site you are able to experience the emotions that took place on that day.

So, millennials, make sure you are educated on YOUR history. This is part of your own story. Make it a point to visit ground zero. Educate your children, and explain to them how it has shaped you. Your role, as the last generation to actively experience 9/11 is to always remember, reflect and talk about it. Talk about it so that it will not go down in history as just a date, but rather as something that always brings about a sick feeling in your stomach, a little bit of pain and, most importantly, pride for our country. Unfortunately, it almost always takes tragedies to bring people together. But that is what the attack did. Lives were lost, and they will forever be mourned, but our country also grew together. This was supposed to make us weaker, but as someone who observed this event and was able to form an opinion without being informed of the facts, I saw a nation that grew stronger.