September 11th~

My memories of that awful morning aren't as personal as others, but who can forget where we were and what we saw that day?

Dick had just driven 22 hours home from Maine, stopping only to drink strong coffee, use the restroom, and fill the gas tank. He drove past the Towers off in the distance, he drove by the Pentagon, finally arriving home around 7 am. I was watching GMA in the living room; he crashed onto our bed and was immediately asleep.

Suddenly, the TV screen filled with the unbelievable scene: a plane had flown into one of the towers of the Trade Center! Must have been a small plane gone off track, I thought. I rushed to wake Dick and made him watch with me as the unthinkable tragedy unfolded...as the second plane, leaving an indelible shape behind, crashed into the other tower.

We cried as we saw people falling from the towers, smoke billowing, people screaming down on the streets of New York. Again and again, we thought: This cannot possibly be happening. It's a movie, somehow, it cannot be!

But of course, it was happening. People were dying as we sat, mesmerized, watching all day and nearly all night long, then all week long, tears streaming down as we tried to comprehend that there were people out there, countries full of people, who hated us Americans. Hated us! Hated our stores, our religions, our children, our parents, US! Hated us enough to kill themselves in order to destroy us. Hated us enough that mothers would encourage their sons and daughters to become suicide bombers.

It is still impossible for me to get my head around that concept, that a mother would willingly sacrifice her child because of her hatred of a religion different from her own.

We lost SO much that day, six years ago.