9/11

I was with my kids on the way home and Samantha started talking about the holocaust and what she knew about it.  I was a little surprised, I didn’t know she knew anything about it.  But we ended up talking about what happened on September 11, 2001 as well.  I don’t think she ever connected that it was only 12 years ago because when I started to talk about what I was doing that morning, she was surprised I was alive.  Yes, honey, it happened only a year before you were born.  But when we were talking, I realized that I had never put my story of what happened that morning here on the blog.  The main reason that I do this blog is if something ever happens to me, my kids will have something to read and learn more about me.  My father died when I was 8, granted their wasn’t blogs back then but I would have loved to gone back and read things that he wrote.  So here’s my story.

I was working 3rd shift at the time, and my regular schedule was I would get off work at 7 and home not very long after (I lived pretty close).  I would get home, hit the head and then crash into bed.  I was usually asleep before 7:30.  I got home that morning, did my usual routine and crawled into bed.  I couldn’t sleep.  I tossed and turned for awhile and decided to get up and do whatever, probably work on my baseball cards.  I turned on the tv and started flipping through the channels.  I ran across a live shot of one of the towers with smoke billowing out.  It was just a news flash on a regular channel so I turned it over to CNN and started following along.  All I could think about was how horrible that kind of accident was.  Then I saw the 2nd plane hit and I just knew it was no accident.  I followed along for a few hours, I think I called my mom at work and told her about it.  The odd thing was that it was very rare for me not to go to sleep right after work.  I don’t know what kept me up, some may tell you that I just knew something was going on.  I’ll tell you, I couldn’t sleep because that’s all I know for a fact.

That’s really about it.  There were all kinds of emotions that I’m not going to go into now.  It’s been 12 years and while we will never forget, it’s not something I want to relive.  The week following was the worst.  Time stood still that week and I took in all the information that I could get, it’s probably the only time I watched the news.  The heart-wrenching stories and the stories of heroic deeds put the nation on overload.  While we will never forget, the nation managed to move on.  While we were together as a nation for a time after that, we’ve gone back to killing each other so we are back to normal now.  I’ll always remember that day and I’ll always remember everyone working as one and becoming a nation.  I hope to never relive that day, but it would be nice if that nation would come together again.