story4048.xml

story4048.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

The morning of September 11, 2002, like many other mornings, began with my husband rocking me gently awake. Only this morning, he had the phone in one hand and was quickly reaching for the television remote with the other. "Amy, wake up" he said, "we're being bombed." He had been woken by the phone call from a friend. In the coming hours we learned that though we weren't technically bombed, our beloved nation was under serious attack.

My husband and I clung to each other for hours that morning at we watched the horror unfold on our television. At the time we lived in an apartment attached to a college dorm. My husband, Brent Tallman, was the resident director of Hills Hall on the campus of Olivet Nazarene University. All classes were cancelled that day, and students began to huddle together around television sets, cell phones and tissues at hand. Brent and I watched this group of young students in America as they tried to make sense of the world as it spun and changed around them.

Later that afternoon, I had to go to work at a daycare center where I cared for 12 infants. Something changed in me as I held those fragile babies that afternoon. They would grow up in a world that was drastically different from what I had grown up in. They would hear stories and see pictures of how their world changed forever on September 11, 2001.

I was not covered with dust that day. I did not have to wonder if my loved ones were alive. I did not see, smell, taste, hear or touch the horror as many did. But I was changed.

May God continue to save and heal our nation. May peace prevail. May pray be a priority. May we cherish those around us today, knowing that tomorrow is not ours. May we never forget...to remember.