September 12, 2011

Today is Sept 12. The day AFTER the disaster. Do you remember that day? I remember flags, steeled resolve, camaraderie, the day we set our jaw to defend ourselves and our ideals. I think it is as important as Sept 11.

Remembering... 10 years later

Just like I remember where I was when President Kennedy was shot (Miss Flynn's first grade classroom), I remember well where I was when the first plane hit. I was shaving, getting ready for work. The whole day was a blur, both then and now. I remember most of it, but it's more like I was watching it, instead of living it.


We picked up the girls from school, as did most people, and trudged through the day best we could, with one eye and one ear on the tv or the radio. Knowing that there was not a plane in the sky was eerie enough, and the news was nonstop. You knew you should quit watching it, but it was impossible to turn it off. And not much else to watch anyway. We went to church that night, and prayed, and cried, and questioned God.

Some suggest that the next day, September 12 was and is just as important as September 11, because it is the day that the flags came out, people got along, the tension in the air was contradicted some by an eagerness to be nice, friendly, cooperative. I sure don't want another attack, but that resulting atmosphere was precious.

I remember seeing the emergency workers working; the news people trying to find them pulling someone out of the rubble. The haze and dirtiness all over everything. And the utter destruction of massive buildings that were supposedly built to withstand an airplane hit. The scene being called Ground Zero. Only, that name stuck, unlike when a hurricane or tornado or earthquake hits. I was there a few years ago. It was obviously cleaned up, and the site was under heavy construction, but the far side from where we were standing, was kind of torn up. Not from the destruction. Probably from construction excavation as they prepared the site. But it looked very raw and unnatural. We were standing on Liberty Street, under scaffolding that had been erected where you could view the site from. It was a kind of sad feeling. Still praying now, about that, because it isn't finished. Not the site, but the fight.

This isn't a pleasant memory, but it is necessary to engage, because it is part of what happened. Lots of innocent people died that day, and others later. We bent, but we did not break. Some very bad people took a swing at us. They didn't miss, but they didn't get us either.

My youngest daughter isn't old enough to remember this, though I remember dealing with it with her. I don't want her, or those who have been born since, to lose touch with that day. We don't have to relive it, But We Must Never Forget. Thank you to those who died, to those who suffered, to those who came to the rescue, to the service men and women who are fighting every day to keep this from happening again so that we can stand under that Flag, and live life like it means something. Because it does.