September 11, 2008

Today is the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on our Country. Since this is the first year that 9/11 has come since I’ve had my blog, I thought that I would write down some of my thoughts from that day. (Not that my thoughts are anything necessarily important for anyone else to read ~ since we all went through it together as a nation, but for my own benefit). I found the website for the National 9/11 Memorial. http://www.national911memorial.org/site/PageServer?pagename=homepage2 It shows the proposed new building information and info. about the Memorial and the Museum. It also has pictures and stories from that day.

I was at work that day and someone came by my office door and mentioned that they had heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in NYC. It could have been an accident….I immediately e-mailed Mark and told him what I had heard. (I think he still has this e-mail from me). There was a TV in the break room on the lower level of our building. I think we all wound up in that room watching everything unfold before our eyes. We actually saw the second plane hit, saw both towers fall, and watched in silent horror as it dawned on us that all of those people in those buildings and anywhere nearby had to have died. I remember saying “All of those people……they’re dead…”.

Nothing like that had ever happened in such a massive way on our own soil. We weren’t prepared to deal with it emotionally. I’m sure, like Mark & I did, everyone went home that day and sat glued in front of your televisions and watched and re-watched it all play out over and over before our very eyes. Technology is amazing with the fact that the entire attack was captured on cameras all over that city, but then to have the ability to sit and watch it all repeatedly did something to us as a nation. There used to be a time when the News wouldn’t show death, but that evening and many days and months afterwards, we were shown clips of those planes filled with all those innocent people slamming into those buildings and then we watched as more innocent people jumped to their deaths because they feared the type of death that they knew awaited them if they stayed in those burning buildings. Those are the images burned in my mind. I can’t watch anything about 9/11 without crying for all the lives that were affected on that day ~ those Mothers, Fathers, Children, Sisters, Brothers, & Friends who started that eerily perfect beautiful day without ever once thinking that their lives would change forever.

I’ve heard it said that each generation has a horrible event occur that they remember forever. I wish that it wasn’t so. I wish that this world and all of its inhabitants could get along and live in such a way that wars and killing wouldn’t be necessary. I wish that I could promise my beautiful sons that they would NEVER have to worry about anything like this happening in their lifetime. I wish that these horrible events would just stop happening, but I know that will never happen. All we can do is make sure that we tell each other as often as we can that we love each other and let each other know the differences that we have all made in each other’s lives. Life is a precious gift and we only have a certain number of days to live it to the fullest. All of those people who died that day thought that they had more time…

To all of my friends and family, each and every one of you have helped to mold me and make me the person that I am today. Each smile, tear, hug, heartache, kind thought, and all that “other stuff” has had such an effect on my life. I hope that I have been able to be a good friend and daughter, grand-daughter, niece, aunt, cousin, mom, and all that “other stuff” to all of you. I often find myself spread very thin while juggling parenting, working, being a wife and all that “other stuff”. Life doesn’t make any more sense to me today than it did a few years ago, but I’m working on figuring it all out and will let you all in on my big AhHah! moment when I find it!

Thank you all for letting me be in your lives. Thank you for accepting me and my family and our quirky ways. Keep us in your prayers and you will all remain to be in ours.