We Remember.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of that fateful day of 2001.
We Remember.
The Toad calling me from his office, which was a financial institution that was headquartered in in the Twin Towers, shortly after 6:30 am stating that a plane had gone into the First Tower....then the shock expletives that came as he watched the second plane hit on the news feed on his computer.
We Remember.
Waking up our guests from Alabama, sitting in front of the computer, trying to understand, trying to figure out fact, fiction, rumors.
We Remember.
The immediate action of local firefighters standing on every corner holding out the boot for the money they unfortunately knew would be needed for the families of the brave men and women who would give their lives in hope of saving someone else.
And in the middle of all that horror and destruction a new life was born.
But We Remembered.
Shortly after, I was talking with the grandmother of that baby girl and congratulated her on her growing family. The grandmother started to cry, depressed that the baby had been born on that awful day. All she could focus on, was that for the rest of her life, that little girl's birthday would be associated with that horrible day. There was absolutely no joy in this grandmother for the birth of that little girl. Only sorrow and despair.
I looked at her and said, "You're wrong. This baby is a symbol that life goes on! In the middle of a horrible, horrible day, a perfect little being was born. Life did not stop. She PROVES that they did not win! We, as a country, stood together! And we are still moving FORWARD. They did not stop America! "
The grandmother just looked at me in shock. Then she said that she had never even considered that angle. For the first couple of months of her grand baby's life, all she saw was the destruction of life. She never saw the continuation of life.
I read the People Magazine article featuring some of the children born, just shortly before or after, to the families that lost a loved on that fateful day. These children are 10 years old. None of them remember the parent they lost. But they laugh. They play. They cry. They live.
WE REMEMBER.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of that fateful day of 2001.
We Remember.
The Toad calling me from his office, which was a financial institution that was headquartered in in the Twin Towers, shortly after 6:30 am stating that a plane had gone into the First Tower....then the shock expletives that came as he watched the second plane hit on the news feed on his computer.
We Remember.
Waking up our guests from Alabama, sitting in front of the computer, trying to understand, trying to figure out fact, fiction, rumors.
We Remember.
The immediate action of local firefighters standing on every corner holding out the boot for the money they unfortunately knew would be needed for the families of the brave men and women who would give their lives in hope of saving someone else.
And in the middle of all that horror and destruction a new life was born.
*******
My neighbor gave birth to a healthy baby girl on that day. Life continued to go forward. But We Remembered.
Shortly after, I was talking with the grandmother of that baby girl and congratulated her on her growing family. The grandmother started to cry, depressed that the baby had been born on that awful day. All she could focus on, was that for the rest of her life, that little girl's birthday would be associated with that horrible day. There was absolutely no joy in this grandmother for the birth of that little girl. Only sorrow and despair.
I looked at her and said, "You're wrong. This baby is a symbol that life goes on! In the middle of a horrible, horrible day, a perfect little being was born. Life did not stop. She PROVES that they did not win! We, as a country, stood together! And we are still moving FORWARD. They did not stop America! "
The grandmother just looked at me in shock. Then she said that she had never even considered that angle. For the first couple of months of her grand baby's life, all she saw was the destruction of life. She never saw the continuation of life.
I read the People Magazine article featuring some of the children born, just shortly before or after, to the families that lost a loved on that fateful day. These children are 10 years old. None of them remember the parent they lost. But they laugh. They play. They cry. They live.
WE REMEMBER.
6 comments:
Such an insight and so very try. We do remember!
You uttered the perfect words for that grandmother to hear. You were destined to be put in her life at that moment. So right you are. We do remember and we will continue to move on. Great post!
Beautiful post, Starla! Hope you had a good day and will have a better one today!
Neat projects. Impressed with your drawing.
A beautiful post. My husband was a US Air Force F15E Pilot on that day. He got home very late the night before (early am of 9/11) so was sleeping when the first plane hit the tower. It got him up to tell him because anything airplane related he is interested in (He still flies for the US Air Force in the guard and as a Fed Ex pilot). He figured it was a Cessna and a clueless pilot but when we saw the smoke and the second hit we knew it was bad. After the Pentagon was hit I turned ti him and said "Oh God, Osama Bin Laden is attacking. You see Rick and his squadron had been deployed in the fall of 1996 to go shoot down Bin Laden but had to come back when they couldn't get clearance to land anywhere in the Middle East. So we knew more than the average American at that time that Bin Laden was a true enemy of the US. Rick was an instructor at that time and yet his squadron, after having been only a training squadron for several years, was deployed to fly homeland security as apart of Noble Eagle. They flew over Washington DC 24/7 for quite awhile. He left the active Duty to join the Guard in Michigan and fly A10's in October of 2001. He had just completed training in that airplane when the unit was ordered to deploy to the Middle East and the start of the war. he was there during the initial 3 months of the war flying all those sorties that the A10's flew. They were the work horses of the war at that time and they were on the news all the time. Certainly freaked me out since he was so new in the jet at that time. Thankfully he was ok and came back during the summer of 2002, unlike so many military men and women who have spent far too long over there. Thank you for sharing your story from a first-hand perspective. Hard to believe it has already been a decode.
you had the perfect words for the grandmother. and for me too. it helps to remember that life does go on even if it seems to stop for a moment
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