Do You Remember?

Where were you 10 years ago? What were you doing? How did you hear? What did you do? It's one of those days that you can never forget, like my parents when they heard about JFK or the man on the moon. I will never forget how I felt that day.

The day started with the plan to fast with Jamie about when we should get married. My alarm went off just after 7 a.m. with DJs announcing that all flights had been grounded and something about smoke. I had worked late at the hospital the night before, so my groggy brain couldn't compute what the DJs were talking about. Very shortly there-after Amber, my roommate, called and told me the Trade Towers had been hit in a terrorist attack. !! The only TV we had in the apartment was in another roommate's closet. I rushed in, woke her up and turned on her TV. I was horrified. We tuned in just following the second plane crash. The reports, the smoke, fire, devastation, terrified people, sirens, and destruction; it was so much to take in--I couldn't believe this had happened in my country. We watched for a little while then I called Jamie and told him what had happened. He came over and watched with us. We couldn't believe that this was our own country and that someone had actually done this to our neighbors.

My marriage date seemed so trivial now. I felt almost like I was betraying those people who were suffering so much by even thinking about a happy and exciting event. We spent most of the day feeling completely at a loss, wishing there was something we could do. The only thing we felt like we could do was to pray for the victims, their families, the responders, and the leaders who suddenly had this tragedy to deal with.

There are no words to truly capture how I felt as I watched the cataclysm of that day. Looking back, I am amazed at the many people who sacrificed time, money, resources and even their own lives to help people they had never met. It was a life-altering day.