Eight Years

Someday I'm sure Emma will have to do a project for school where she asks her parents what they were doing on Sept. 11, 2001. It's a day I'll never forget as terrorism became more than just an obscurity that happened in distant lands.

I was home on summer break before my junior year of college. We were still on the quarter system and didn't go back until the following week. I was sleeping when my brother called and told me to go turn on the t.v., the WTC had just been hit by a plane. Of course at that point we had no idea of what was to come. I watched live as the second plane hit tower two. I remember a sinking feeling coming over me as it was quite apparent that this was no accident and thinking over and over, "What the heck is happening and why?" Pictures of the Pentagon flashed across the screen and newscasters speculated about other targets and how every flight in America had been grounded, but there were still planes unaccounted for. I spent the next several hours glued to the t.v. and watched the world change, live before my eyes. I remember my mom calling to tell me not to go anywhere, but where would I have gone? I don't think anyone felt like a trip to the mall at that point. I tried walking on the treadmill while watching t.v. but kept stopping as I watched in horror all the crazy images of things that were not supposed to happen in my country. I remember going to church that evening like so many others just to pray because really, what else could we do? I remember giggling once that night with my dad as Congress broke out in an ackward impromptu of "God Bless America" on the steps of the Capitol. The commentator saw it as a great show of unity, but for some reason we saw it as comic relief.

So many important and mundane things have happened in those eight years that have passed, but it's a day forever etched in my memory; no matter how many years pass I'll always remember it with clarity.