story10942.xml

story10942.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-09-11

I will never for forget how I heard about the events of 9-11.

I was in Connecticut visiting my sister, brother-in-law, and 16 month old nephew.....My daughter was 20 months and my son was just 5 months old.

My sister said she would hold down the fort while I took a shower....I was nervous about leaving her to take care of 3 babies by herself for an hour (all moms know what a handful that can be).....She assured me that she could handle it.....Her exact words were, "I'm sure the world's not going to end in the next hour while you're in the shower."

I remember her knocking on the bathroom door and saying something like, "I was wrong.....you have to come out here right now"

I hurriedly got dressed and yelled (through the door)....."Are the kids ok? What's wrong?"

She said the kids were fine and struggled to find the words to describe what she just saw on the news.....
I opened the door and she looked flushed and very upset.....She stammered out something about a plane hitting some building that I never heard of......then she mentioned something about the Pentagon being hit.

I didn't understand what she was saying.....She finally said, "I think we're at war.....they're crashing OUR planes into buildings......You HAVE to come into the living room.....

I felt a cold chill come over me......It felt like I was in a dream.....It seemed so surreal, the walk from the bathroom to her living room, where are 3 babies were playing so innocently, where we were joking and laughing just an hour before.....yet here I was walking in there to see OUR homeland being attacked......our country, where we'd lived our entire life feeling completely safe.

When they replayed the clip of the second plane hitting the 2nd tower, I felt the tears streaming down my face unstoppably.....We didn't talk.....We just stared at the screen in disbelief and complete shock.

My brother-in-law(a college football coach) came home early that day.....We all sat around holding the babies close and watching the news......We watched the first tower crumble to the ground......We cried as we asked questions that we would soon wish we didn't know the answers to: "My God, were there people still inside?....Is that second building going to fall too???....Were there many people in the plane?."

Then came the question that everyone wondered that day: "What else is going to happen?.....Are 'they' going to stop or is this attack going to hit our home and our families?"

We called everyone in our family, when we could actually get through on the phone because the lines all across America were being flooded with calls.
One of us always stayed by the television if the others left the room......I remember my sister and brother-in-law, when they announced that they were grounding ALL flights in the country and ordering ALL planes, still in the air, to land.
I shouted the news over to them and I remember my brother-in-law stammering in complete denial that "they would NEVER do that....you must of heard it wrong.....that would cripple the airline industry.....they, they, they just wouldn't do that."

I remember my sister saying something like, "I think crashing planes in buildings is pretty bad for the industry too.....and if they're using our own planes to attack us then I'm pretty sure they WOULD ground all the planes honey."

He was like, "But why.....what does that do?" (he was in shock)

I said, "I think that's soooo smart to do.....because anyone still flying around up there is NOT supposed to be.....at least we'll know how many bad-guys there are."

He replied, "and then what? There are innocent people up there in those planes.....what's the government going to do, shoot them down anyway?"

No one said anything.....We all knew the answer.....they would have no choice BUT to do just that......because either way, those people were going to die......and who ever was doing this, was going to make sure they took as many other people with them as possible.
It was a tragic and horrible realization......We all felt so helpless, so confused, and so very sad.

We heard rumor about the plane that went down in Pennsylvania that was supposively heading towards the White House......We wondered out loud if the people on the plane had heard about what was going on and had tried to stop the people doing this........We cried for joy for the people they saved and we cried that their bravery cost them the ultimate price.

We soon asked out loud all the questions that the whole country would soon be asking....."Who did this?.....Why did they do this?.....How could this happen?"
I remembered seeing a documentary about this guy Bin Laden that supposively hated us......None of us really understood why......(How innocent and unknowing we all were back then!.....The entire country would learn about terrorist-mind-set in the years to come.)
"How could this happen?" was a question that we may never know the answer to.....and no answer could ever make us feel better......It was our awakening to the harsh realities of the world we live in.

Our fear and sorrow quickly turned to anger.....even at ourselves.....we had taken our wonderful country for granted.....and we all realized that day, how very much we loved it, and its people, flaws and all.

I remember how my sister's street went from seeming foreign (I'm from RI) to seeming just like home.....How our whole country was one big united family.....and no matter where you were in the country, you were home and your neighbors were no longer strangers.
Flags lined every house, on every street.....not white flags of surrender but the American Flag.....Within days, you couldn't buy single flag ANYWHERE.....You couldn't buy red, white, and blue anything because it was sold out all across the country.....Candles were lit and placed outside and in windows......Pride and love for our HOME shown through every single person in this country.....Everyone was nicer in the stores....everyone helped one another.....Appreciation for the police and firefighters shown through....We all held our families a little tighter.

We fly our flag year round now....We have flag bumper stickers on our cars.....and we light candles every year on September 11th....for the ones lost and the ones left to carry on.....We will never forget.

We may disagree about some of the politics and the decisions that our government makes.....but we love this land in which we live and we'll fight to keep her people safe.....We're proud of her.....and we work to make it the best it can be. We support our troops even when we disagree with why they are where they are.....and we pray that our presence there brings freedom and peace someday.....We pray that our leaders hearts are good and their intentions true......We vote even if we don't like either candidate because so many died for us to have the right to do so.......It's our duty.
We try to treat others the way we want to be treated....We work hard, play hard, and love much.

We live as though "the world were as it should be to show it what it can be."

God Bless America.....the country where you are free to say that......We will never forget.