9/11

Today is the anniversary of 9/11/01 when our country was viciously attacked. I don't think anyone who experienced it in any way--by tv, radio, newspaper or in person--is the same.

It was interesting: Christine had an assignment last night to write a paper on her feelings of 9/11 and what she remembered. She had me proof it before she printed it out and I was surprised to read what she did remember and how she felt then and now. She had just started 1st grade. I thought she might be too young to have 'really' picked up on much. Boy was I wrong!

We had just been home a week from taking Natalie back to BYUI and Josh was fresh home from his mission and getting settled in at BYU. We got up that morning, Shaun went to seminary and Christine was eating breakfast. Duff walked her to the bus-stop and was home really fast that morning and yelled for me in the kitchen and ran in and turned on the TV. The first plane had just hit the first tower. Everything stopped. I was washing the breakfast dishes. I don't think I ever went back to them until that night.

We immediately called all the older kids and none of them had heard about it yet. We agreed to all find a place individually and pray. That was the only thing anybody could do. I remember I felt very insecure that my family was spread out all over the place and not together. I wonder if that's how every mother felt. A mother hen wanting to protect her chicks.

Commentary was going on tv and then suddenly the truly unbelievable happened. The 2nd plane crashed the other tower. I don't think ANY one could believe what our eyes were seeing. Reports started coming in about other hijackings and shortly the Pentagon was hit. Then we learned about the brave people who helped to purposely crash the last plane into a field in Pennsylvania so it wouldn't hit another target.

In the chaos of all this, the 2nd tower groaned and in a matter of seconds this landmark of a building imploded to the ground. Smoke, dust, fire, ashes, everywhere. Screaming, people jumping out of windows. It looked like one of those controlled collapses they do when they tear down buildings that can't be used anymore. Then the 1st tower followed in the same way. I remember thinking: not both of them?!

Can I tell you how terrible it was, and yet we kind of felt guilty because we were feeling blessed. Duff traveled that SAME flight out of Boston to LA regularly! He could have been on that plane! As it was, he stayed in that Marriott hotel right across the street from the Twin Towers when he would go to NY. He worked with many people in those towers and did business there. So did our good friend and neighbor Brett Koelliker. Some of those business acquaintances were gone before our eyes.

We fly a lot. There is never a flight where I don't think about 9/11 in a brief way. All the changes in air travel. I am grateful for the bit of inconvenience. It reminds me of our freedom. How precious it is. How I get up everyday and usually take it for granted. How I need to do better. How my mom's parents left their German homeland to come here for it so their posterity could be blessed with it.

Everyone has a story about where they were and how they felt on 9/11, kind of like those of us who remember when President Kennedy was shot or Pearl Harbor was attacked.

Well, this is my second post on a blog that I'm still not quite sure I know how to use, but I wanted to write down my feelings and what I remembered for a journal entry. (I hope I push the right button so it posts and I don't delete it.)