Remembering 9/11

for many Americans, for several generations, September 11th is going to be one of Those Questions...

each generation has some of those questions; sometimes the questions overlap generations...

society-altering, soul-shaking moments that make people say "I remember where I was when..."

like when people say where they were when JFK or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were assassinated or when The Bomb was dropped...or when the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up...although, sadly, now there are 2 of those instances to recall...

Too young for the first two, I do remember when Challenger and her astronauts blew apart in a fiery explosion...

and I remember the utter shock and disbelief taking over my emotions...

and now I also remember when a man ran up to me at the hospital where I was working on 9/11/2001...

I cannot remember his face but I can remember him saying "a plane just flew into the World Trade Center" and I remember some of the thoughts that raced through my mind...

the ones I voiced were "a little plane? it was an accident, right?", thinking some poor hobby pilot flew horribly off course and lost control of his plane...

but it wasn't, was it? patients and staff gathered around as we could to watch the tragedy unfolding, hoping that somehow those people would be rescued...we knew those on the airplane were beyond help...

then we watched in disbelief as the second plane flew into the WTC...

I will never forget watching people fling themselves from those buildings, tiny dark figures hurtling down through the air...

...then those towers came down before our disbelieving eyes...

and as that grief-filled day unfolded, we learned of more victims...the victims of the attack on the Pentagon, both the passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 77 as well as the Pentagon staff, and the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93...

My heart still hurts for the victims of 9/11...

the people who died, their families and for the rest of us too...

9/11 wounded us all...

I believe time heals wounds...this one will take a long long time to heal all the way...


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Deb at Deb's Country Kisses has gifted me with a Sweet Award...

Deb, I promise I'll pass this award on tomorrow when we all aren't feeling quite so blue...