Remembering 9/11/01

Today marks 7 years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. Everyone remembers where they were when they heard about it. I was working at Care Initiatives in West Des Moines. I had a radio in my cubicle. It was barely audible for fear of upsetting someone, but I remember hearing Katie Couric's voice and thinking, "that's weird, why is Katie Couric on the radio?" So I turned it up and at that point they didn't really know it was a terrorist attack, just reporting that an airplane had hit one of the buildings of the World Trade Center. Then as I was listening, the second airplane hit and that's when I realized this wasn't just an accident. Soon after, several of us gathered in a room that had a TV and we watched some of the coverage. I remember the lady who sat next to me, Peg, was so upset she had to leave work. I'm sure I didn't accomplish much more the rest of the day. I remember trying to find reports on the Internet and our network was terrible on a normal day, so Internet was pretty much nonexistent on that day. I remember going home that night and Jim and I just sat on the couch watching all of the news coverage. We were pretty much glued to it and I remember just sitting there crying, knowing our nation would never be the same and wondering how I could ever bring a child into this world. I still get teary when I think of all of the children who lost parents or all of the firefighters who died risking their lives going into those buildings KNOWING that it was not going to be good.

We went to New York City for New Year's Eve in 2003 and visited Ground Zero, the site where the World Trade Center was. I had never seen the buildings in person before but to look up at the buildings around us that seemed monstrous and know that the World Trade Center buildings reached way beyond them was just unbelievable to me and to know that they collapsed, they fell. to. the. ground...I just couldn't wrap my brain around it.

Tonight we were watching a story about it on the History Channel and I still don't like to watch it. Cade walks in the room and says, "I think there's a fire outside." So I said, "no that's somewhere else, not here." But it made me realize that some day I am going to have to explain it to my children and that I can't shield them from all things bad for forever. My hope is that when that day comes, the thought of that occurring will be as much of a shock to them, as it was to all of us who witnessed it.