I will never forget 9/11/2001

9/11, Patriot Day Pictures - Quotes - Photobucket

I will forever remember where I was on 9/11/2001. I was at work sitting at my computer. I had started at 7:30am that day, and I was looking over some papers drinking coffee, when someone yelled out that a plane had hit the trade center.  We all thought that it must a have a  been a small plane, that it must have been a mistake.  At first even the news reports were about a small plane.  Everyone was looking at their computer screen in disbelief. Minutes later, the second plane hit the second tower, and we all knew it wasn't a mistake.  We were glued to the computer screens with sickening horror and disbelief. Is this a movie?  How could anything like this happen?  People were then frantically trying to reach their loved ones.  No one could even think of working.  Our company let everyone leave about 10 or 10:30 am.  I went home to meet my husband.

Once we were home, we spent the rest of the day, glued to the TV.  The images were so compelling and sickening at the same time.  We wanted all of the details to try and comprehend what was happening on the screen?  How could any this horrific happen, and who would do this?  Over the next few days more details came to light. Any of our free hours from work were spent watching the TV.  Finally, by Saturday of that week, we needed a break and went to dinner at our favorite little Italian restaurant.  Sitting in the bar, waiting for our table, everyone was talking about 9/11.   We felt guilty for going out for trying to have a good time, when there were so many people elsewhere in turmoil.

We sort of had a somber dinner, but life goes on.

I felt compelled this year to write about 9/11, because of this poem that I saw in the Sunday Parade Magazine in The Chicago Tribune by Billy Collins, Poet Laureate. He wrote a poem called "Names"   about the 2,792 people who perished that day. This poem is so stirring thought provoking, I had to share it.  Here are the closing lines:

Names etched on

the head of pin

one name spanning a

 bridge, another

undergoing a tunnel.

A blue name needled

into the skin.

Names of citizens,

workers, mothers, and fathers.

The bright- eyed

daughter, the quick son.

Alphabet of names in

a green field.

Names in the small

tracks of birds.

Names lifted from a hat

Or balanced on 

the tip of the tongue.

Names wheeled

 into the dim warehouse

of memory.

So many names, there

is barely room on 

the walls of the heart.

 Never Forget!

Also, do not forget that there are Thousands of military families and soldiers deployed around the world, still fighting to keep America Free, and thousands of soldiers that have given the their life to still fight the fight!