10 Years

It's been ten years since 09/11/01.  Ten years since we lost so many family members, friends, acquaintances, and strangers.  Ten years since we lost our innocence.

I wanted to write something profound, something moving, something that might express what I felt that day.

I can't do it.

I've hit the same wall I hit when I try to write about my dad, who died in 1987.

I can't find the words.

Ten years ago I was at work and my mom called to tell me that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers.  I ran down the hall and told my girlfriend M, then ran back to my office and turned on the radio so I could listen.

What I heard - well, it felt as though it stopped my heart.

A SECOND plane had hit the SECOND Tower.

It wasn't an accident.  It wasn't, God forbid, a pilot who'd lost control of his plane.  It wasn't bad visibility.  It was a beautiful, sunny, gorgeous sunny day...

We went to the boss' office.  We saw the Towers fall.

He sent us all home.  He told us not to bother leaving any messages on our phones.  "Just leave.  You need to be with your families."  That was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the most sensitive and humane thing he ever said in the 15 years I worked at that company.

This was the in days before cell phones (at least in our family).  I called the school to see if all was okay there; J was only a mile or so as the crow flies from the Twin Towers, maybe a little more.  I couldn't get him.

I didn't hear from him until he got home after 6pm that night...  He said what he saw on the way home shook him to his core.  People walking on Route 3, shell-shocked, covered in ashes and blood and bandages.  No disrespect intended, but he said they reminded him of zombies...

I spent the next 48, 72, 96 hours GLUED to the television and/or the radio.

I couldn't believe it happened.

We were attacked.  Attacked in our own home.  Not once, but FOUR TIMES, twice in the City, and again in Shanksville and at the Pentagon.

That was the day I truly realized how much I had to lose.  My husband.  My family.  My home.  My country.  It's not the things that matter, it's what's in my heart.  And what's in my heart is irreplaceable.

I've had a headache today, all day.  I blamed it on the weather, on a late night last night (more on that in another post), but since the Advil Cold and Sinus didn't really work on it at all, I'm thinking it's reliving the pain of that black day 10 years ago...

Prayers to and for all who perished, to and for their families and friends, to and for our great country, that we all heal as best we can, but also prayers that WE.NEVER.FORGET.