Born on Sept. 11

By JULIO BENITEZ

Dear Diary:

When I was young, school started for New York City kids the second week of September. Being born on the 11th meant no classroom celebration; it took at least three weeks for your classmates to even remember your name.

I always wished that I had been born in October or, better yet, April, when you have time to make great friends and secure great gifts. My Mom assured me that “everything happens for a reason.”

Years later while serving in the Army, my birthday view was forever altered by a trip to Munich from Augsburg, Germany, on Sept. 11, 1980. As we approached Munich, an exit sign to Dachau caught my attention. “Could it be that Dachau?” I wondered. I exited the autobahn and it was. While walking on that holy ground I considered how many birthdays had passed there and how (if at all) they were marked. I returned on Sept. 11 for the next two years in honor of those birthdays lost to inhumane a cts of violence.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, my mother called to ask if I had seen that a “small plane” had mistakenly crashed into the World Trade Center. I hadn't. A short time later, a second call.

“Please don't let this tragedy ruin your birthdays,” she told me, and, just like a mom, she continued: “Your birth was a gift to humanity. God chose the day because it balances things.”

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