September 11, 2001 is a date that will be engraved in the minds of Americans forever. I don’t think we realized how fortunate we were before then. Our freedom was taken for granted until the day we were attacked. The catastrophic events of that day, in one way or another, affected every person in the United States of America.

My father is an investment banker and helps companies raise money so they can grow, invest in assets or buy other companies. He works hard and is well respected. In September 2001, he was trying to get a company to sign his firm to be their investment banking firm. He spent many long days in Houston meeting with this company and put his whole heart into clinching the deal. Surprisingly, they chose another firm. My father was very disappointed, since he had already scheduled meetings for the company in New York the next week, but he did not dwell on it and just forged ahead with other assignments.

The very next week, four planes were hijacked and thousands of innocent people lost their lives. My father would have been in one of the Twin Towers that horrible day if the company had chosen his firm to represent them.

Several months later, the company did ask my father to represent them. The other firm had not worked out the way they had expected and my father had never stopped calling on the company. He agreed to work with them but was thankful he had not been chosen the first time, for he might not be here today.

This situation with my father taught me some valuable lessons. One is to always do your best because you will succeed in the long run. The second is to have faith that there is a reason for everything that happens, good or bad. And the last lesson I learned is to live life to the fullest because you never know what can happen.