Remembering September 11th, 2001

Do you remember where you were?? I totally remember where I was. I was at work and someone came into my department and said, "A plane hit one of the twin towers." We were looking around like, "REALLY?? How could that happen?" Then few minutes later someone else said, "another plane has hit the other twin tower!" One of the ladies in my department says, "What's wrong with Air Control?" I thought, "this is NOT Air Control, this is a major problem!" So we all went running out to the breakroom to watch the TV. We couldn't believe our eyes. A short time later the third plane hit the Pentagon and they said they were evacuating the government buildings in DC. Of course, the majority of the phones were jammed and I was at work so I wasn't able to call anyone to find out if my family had any information on my sister. See, Sally worked at the Children's Defense Fund in downtown DC. We really had no idea for awhile where she was, what was going on, or where she was going. My parents finally heard from her and she was okay and was being evacuated. But everything was okay. Over the next couple of days the only thing that was on TV was the planes crashing over and over and over and over. I think for me that was the hardest part. I felt like we couldn't move on and try to find a way to start healing, we just kept reliving it over and over. I was glad when they started showing regular programming again and only spoke of it on the news. I didn't think we should forget about it, but we needed to learn how to live our lives with the hightened security and terrorist threats. We needed to learn how to deal with this. I think we have done a great job.

In 2005, we went to NYC over the September 11th weekend. We went with my sisters, Laura and Sally and their husbands, Marvin and Max. Sunday was September 11th, the families were there reading the names of those that were killed. It is hard to explain the way we felt when we were there, at Ground Zero, while the names are being read. There were several friends and firefighters and police men that were there or who had lost people. There was one man in a little corner of the fence just sobbing. It was so heart breaking. My brother in law, Max took this picture above. One of the beams still stood in the shape of a cross and then in the background there was a large American Flag on the building behind Ground Zero. We thought it was a beautiful picture. (Mine didn't turn out. So Max was nice enough to share.) I was in awe walking around the block. I am so grateful for the chance we had to be there on that special day. It definitely is a day that will not be forgotten. I pray that the families have found peace in their lives. I also pray that we will not have to go through that terror again.