story5725.xml

story5725.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I had taken an early walk on the morning of September 11th, 2001. I remember it being such a beautifulday, full of sun, crisp cool air. My son was due to be born any time and I was walking to encourage the birth process along. I had been having contractions off and on for days. I must have come back in to the house sometime after 8:30 and was just resting on a comfortable chair timing my contractions. Suddenly, a relative who lives just across from us walked through the door with a look of panic on his face and said, "I don't guess you've heard..." A feeling of dread overwhelmed me as I scanned over possiblities in my mind of what he could be talking about. Had someone died? "We've been attacked. Two planes have just crashed into the towers in New York." As those words pierced the quietness of the house I don't think either of us could really believe them. We quickly ran back over to his home where the television was still showing footage of what nobody could believe had just happened. We kept asking one another questions. "Don't you think those buildings could fall?" "Is anyone helping those people out?" "What's going to happen next?" Neither of us could comprehend that this could actually be happening. I just watched those towers burning and thought about how there were actually people in there that were facing a horrible death while I sat in my neighbor's home watching. Did they know that the world could see them? The world could see them but no one could do anything. That is unbelievable. And as the day wore on the story grew more and more unbelievable. Another plane crashed into the Pentagon? Another in a field in Pennsylvania? What was happening? I finally drug myself back home almost in a daze. In fact, the rest of that day seems almost like a blur. All I kept seeing were the airplanes crashing. All I could think about was how those people trapped in the buildings must have been so afraid. I asked the Lord to hold them. On September the 12th, my son was born. My mother-in-law wrote this haiku. Manhattan burns, Ira is born, A flower in a field of ashes.