Where Was I?

It was the first September since I was three that I wasn't in school.  I had the morning off from work and I was (surprisingly) laying in bed reading.  It was a Robert Ludlum novel, though don't ask me which one.  My mother called from work and told me to turn on the tv, a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.  I turned on the tv moments after the second plane had hit.  I told her what was happening, we chatted for a minute, and hung up the phone.  I called Katie.  I asked her if she was watching tv.  She wasn't.  I told her to turn it on, to any channel.  Together we watched, from our own houses, as the towers collapsed.  I will always remember that moment on the Today show, with the towers in the background, smoking, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer talking about whether or not this was a terrorist act and seeing in the corner of the screen the first tower crumbling to the ground and the Katie and Matt pausing what they were doing in a moment of horror.

I don't remember many details from that day.  I know like most of the country I watched the news coverage almost non-stop for days.  I remember watching Tom Brokaw cry.  I remember eating ice cream at Katie's house watching the coverage.  I remember watching Rudy Giuliani speak, the President speak, World Leaders speak.

The next day I went to the cookie shop, where I was supposed to be working.  The streets were silent.  The owner had hung large American Flags over the windows and the shop was illuminated in a somber Blue and Red light.  It was so quiet.  And I remember that night, after going into Portland, there was a vigil at my neighbor's house whose son had died in the attack at the Pentagon.  I didn't know the neighbor, had never met her son, but I went, and stood quietly, watching and thinking.

When I think back, about my own experience, I remember being glued to the tv, watching and waiting.  I think I was waiting for answers that to this day I don't think I've ever gotten.  How can anyone justify the loss of that many innocent lives?  Where does that mindset come from?  I still don't understand, I'm not sure I ever will.

Today I am remembering the innocent and the heroes of September 11, 2001.

This song always reminds me of 9/11 and this video was haunting