9/11

I was just reading Heather Johnson's blog entry about September 11th and it really stirred up my memories of that day and the days that followed. While I am certainly not as eloquent, I will write what I remember: I was sleeping and the phone rang. It was Natalie calling me from Logan, Utah and saying "Mom, are you awake? Turn on the TV, someone has just attacked the Pentagon!" I asked her "Are we at war?" and she replied "I think maybe so." It absolutely terrified me. When I turned on the TV, I couldn't make sense of the images and stories. News people were all excited, there were images of the Twin Towers, there was fire and smoke and I couldn't really comprehend it. Where was the Pentagon? What were they saying? What was happening? I don't know how many minutes I sat there before my mind began to make some kind of sense of the images and sounds, and even then I could not comprehend it. And I couldn't leave the television. I was glued to it. All I could think about was my son was in a foreign country (Venezuela) and my daughter was in Utah, and it appeared that something horrific was occurring. It was much worse than the Oklahoma City bombing, whatever it was, and that had been awful. The nurse in me wanted to DO something, but I couldn't imagine what that would be. Some of the most enduring and terrifying images for me over the next days, weren't of the rubble, but of the lines of gurneys and waiting hospital personnel and NO PATIENTS!!

But I agree with the marine Heather quotes in her blog. The most amazing memory of all came the next day, and the weeks and months following that. The incredible rush of patriotism, the American flag flying everywhere, the immediate sense of community. Everywhere I went, everyone I spoke with or interacted with was simply kinder, gentler, almost reverent. Not just people in my classes or at church, but the guy at the drive through window at McDonalds, the people driving on the freeways, EVERYONE! The shared grief made us value each other more as Americans and as human beings. There was love in the air. It came from each of us and from all over the world. This is a lesson I wish had not dimmed from our memories so quickly.