9/11 Remembered

Today was the 8th anniversary of September 11. It's hard to believe it's only been eight years since in some ways it's faded from my memory somewhat. Then tonight the History Channel showed a marathon of 9/11 footage including the documentary "102 Minutes that Changed America." I hadn't seen it before, and it brought back the horror of the whole situation.

I admit that my first recollections of that morning eight years ago fell along the lines of "oh, how interesting." I'm not an AM TV watcher, so I first heard about the attack on the radio. Then came a little more information. But the moment that it really hit me was as I was driving I-5, passing Enchanted Forest when the announcement came that the airports were closed. That was my "whoa!" moment. I was supposed to pick up my sister and a friend at PDX that night. They were flying home from another friend's wedding in Nevada. I called my parents to find out if they had heard from my sister. And I spent the rest of the day teaching in a building that had no cable TV. The internet was overloaded, and information was scarce. The whole day was sort of surreal until I could see the images on TV when I got home.

Work kept my thoughts pretty calm. Once I was home, however, my overactive imagine could run rampant. The wedding guests in Nevada managed to squeeze extra people in cars. My sister got home about 11:00 that night. My immediate family was accounted for, Thank God. But it was days before I heard from friends in LA and DC, who could have either been on one of those planes, or near the Pentagon when that plane hit. And then came the realization that life would be different. And I made a pledge to myself to not live in fear, which I think I've done pretty well.