Remembering....

The day began like so many other days, a hectic race to get the kids off to school followed by a slightly less frenzied rush to get myself ready for work. I was excited, and a little nervous as I prepared for the day ahead. I had a trainer from the corporate office flying in to work with our staff on store presentation. As I moved about my room, a news report caught my attention. The Today Show was reporting that a plane that had just struck one of the towers in the World Trade Center. Katie Couric and Matt Lauer were speculating about what might have occurred. Was it an accident? Could it have been intentional? There was still a lot of confusion. As they panned to a live shot of the Towers, a second plane flew into view and straight into the Second tower. The disbelief, and shock that I felt in that moment was echoed by the news casters who had watched with me. I reached for the phone and called my husband at the Pentagon. He was surprisingly unaware of the events in New York, so I gave him a quick recap, hung up, and headed to work. I couldn't yet make sense of what I had just seen.

I was half way to my office when they started reporting that a plane had struck the Pentagon. My first thought was disbelief. The reporter must have gotten events confused. Still, in the pit of my stomach, I felt the first flutter of fear. I pressed my foot to the gas and drove a little faster. I needed to get to a phone. Six minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of my store in full panic mode. I raced past my co-workers. My hand was shaking, and my heart was racing as I dialed my husband's number. His line was ringing, but no one was answering. I hung up and called back, this time I got a message that the circuits were busy. I started repeating the same two statements in my head. " The Pentagon is huge. Chuck is fine. The Pentagon is huge. Chuck is fine." After several unsuccessful attempts to get through again to the Pentagon, I switched tactics and called my Army "Sister" whose husband also worked in the Pentagon. She had not been able to get through to her husband either, but she had learned that the area where the plane had struck was in the area where our husbands worked. I hung up the phone, turned towards the TV in our office and watched the images flashing across the screen. That was the moment I finally realized that the world as we had known it had changed, and would never again be the same.

Twelve years later, I still vividly recall the overwhelming relief when my husband walked up the path to our home, and later, our children's faces as we picked them up from their schools. I had thought they would be sheltered in their schools from the new reports only to learn that they had quickly been apprised of events by other students with cell phones. We spent several more hours that day waiting to hear news about each member of our military family, and felt relief and gratitude each time we learned that someone else made it home safely mixed with sadness and grief as we learned of colleagues who weren't as fortunate.

My feelings and emotions are as conflicted today as they were twelve years ago. Relief, gratefulness, joy, guilt, anger and bewilderment mixed together. I am forever grateful that I have been able share the last twelve years with my husband. I can't help but feel joy in my heart for the gift that God gave me that day, yet I feel selfish and guilty for allowing myself to enjoy my good fortune when others are burdened by grief. I harbor tremendous anger towards the individuals that committed those acts of terrorism that day, and bewilderment as to how anyone could twist and distort a religious belief into a call to murder. I'd like to forgive, because I know that is what God would want me to do, but I am not sure that I am there yet. I will never forget.