I can't help but remember on this, the 12th anniversary of 9/11, the way it felt that morning as I watched in horror as the events unfolded.
I woke up early that morning and had just turned on the Today show, the first plane had just hit and they still didn't know what had happened. As they began to speculate and were talking about the previous attack on the towers with a truck in the parking garage, our ceiling fan suddenly let out a little burst of flame and I was distracted for a moment, I couldn't really comprehend what was happening. Were they talking about a past attack or something that had just happened? I tried to follow their conversation while dealing with the ceiling fan. We were all trying to figure out what had just happened.
As the seriousness started to hit me, I sat down to pay closer attention. The anchors were still speculating about how this plane had hit the tower when suddenly I was watching in horror as a second plane flew into the shot and right into the second tower. I watched in disbelief, my mind trying to understand what it had just witnessed. Suddenly the entire tone changed. This was no accident, we were under attack! As more information came out, the horror began to sink in.
As they reported about another plane down, missing planes, the fear in me began to grow. A plane was down in a field, a plane was missing, a plane hit the Pentagon, I was filled with dread and terror. When would it end? How much more destruction would there be? I felt like I was thrust into a suspense film, but it wasn't a movie, it was real life. These were not actors I was watching on my screen, these were real people, living real terror, real tragedy, real horror. I will never forget the sheer terror as I watched the tower fall, and the people try to outrun that horrible black, all engulfing cloud that chased them down.
It was a grief and fear that threatened to overtake me. If not for my faith that God still sat on His throne in the midst of all this nightmare unfolding, it might have. I tore myself away from the news to take the kids to our homeschool park day. It had been decided that in the midst of all that was happening, we should still gather. The kids played, mostly unaware of the horror unfolding on the other side of our Country. But the moms conversations were filled with sadness, grief, disbelief. We all gathered in a circle and prayed for all those people 3,000 miles away who didn't have the option to take a break from the events of the day. We prayed for the loved ones who were left behind, the kids who had parents who would not be returning home that night, the spouses who would lay in empty beds that night, the responders who were witnessing carnage we couldn't even imagine, and wouldn't want to. We thanked God for our own loved ones who were safe and sound.
We tried as best we could to retain a sense of normalcy for the sake of our children, but we all knew that our world had been forever changed. And we all knew that we would never, ever forget where we were when it happened.
I think we all held our loved ones a little tighter in the days that followed. We worried and wondered what might happen next. Slowly we got back to life as usual. But my heart still hurts for those who weren't able to turn the news off and go back to life as usual because they were living smack in the middle of the nightmare. And so today as I remember the terror and disbelief I lived that day and the ones that followed, I can't help but think of, and pray for, those who live with the reality of that day every single day. There is no respite for then, No life as usual. I pray that as time has passed their hearts grieve less each passing year and ask God to continue to be close to them and bind up their wounds and heal their hearts.
Whatever I write seems so inadequate, but somehow I felt that I needed to share this story that has been sitting so close to the surface today.
Be Blessed,
Colleen
