*photo does not belong to me but did not have a copyright credit attached to it....
Thanks to an Applebee's gift card, Tony and I got to have supper out Saturday night. Nice to get away for a moment, and talk without kids interrupting.... we mostly talked about 10 yrs. ago, and it was sobering to realize all that had changed.
To be honest, I was a bit disconnected from the 9/11 situation... we had just started our homeschooling journey a few weeks before, our TV was disconnected from cable so we could stay a little more focused in our first month after starting school. That was the day that I learned how to reconnect it.....
We were all sitting in our school room... I had five children then... they were 11yo, 9yo, 6yo, 3yo, all boys, and our first daughter was about 5 mons. old. The boys were working on school work when I got the first phone call. Neighbors and friends called to let me know about the first attacks, because they all knew my TV was disconnected for our start of school. I was in disbelief with each phone call telling me of one more disaster...I turned on the radio, and the kids and I listened to the distraught reporters explaining what had happened. My boys panicked at first, thinking that we were going to have bombs dropped on us... I was trying to explain it all, but I didn't really know what to tell them.
We stopped and prayed for the people in NY... and then I decided to find out where the cable was disconnected in our icky basement. I didn't know what I was looking for, but took a flashlight down and after looking for a few moments, found the cable where Tony had disconnected it. I had to stand on my tiptoes, and there were spider webs over my head (that is a big deal, for those of you who do not know me well....) but I managed to get it hooked together.
By this time, everything had already happened, and watching the coverage was almost like watching a movie after you had read the book. It all felt very surreal, and I couldn't really connect with the proper emotions... I didn't have the same level of shock I think I would've had if I had seen everything happen in real time. I couldn't really connect with the fact that REAL people were inside the towers when they were hit and when they fell... REAL people were on those planes! Lives of so many, inside and outside the towers were changed forever.... I honestly can understand it better now than I did back then....
Ironically, my best memory of that day.... is actually a really funny one.... my sister was one of the last of those who called me, and we talked for a couple of hours... that wasn't really unusual for us to talk for extended periods of time..... just wasn't planned on that day... her two boys were almost 2yrs. old then. They were at the age where the two of them could gang up on her and make a mess so fast.....and because she was distracted on the phone, talking to me, she was suddenly greatly shocked to turn around and see flames coming out of her stove top! One of her boys turned on the burner, and it was covered by a burner cover, but sitting on top of that was a large economy size box of PopTarts... which was now in FLAMES! I remember her hanging up, and it was difficult to stay focused on the tragedy at hand as I wondered what was happening at my sister's house!
Thankfully, right as she hung up with me, her phone rang again.... a friend of hers was calling her about the 9/11 attacks, and she told her to get her flour and dump it on the flames, which she did.... so all went well... when she called back to let me know what happened, I remember I couldn't stop laughing.... no one could make me laugh harder than my sister. She was a very good storyteller. So, when I think about where I was on 9/11, I usually think about laughing on the phone with my sister.....
Anyway..... as I look back over the past 10 years, I can see a lot of big changes. A lot of things in my life have a "before" and "after"....things that I didn't even know could change in that way.....
For me.... my personal 9/11 was my sister's death, but we all have those pivotal moments when everything we used to know so well has been replaced with a "new norm." Today, we will all think about what was and what has become... we might even wonder about the future. But, the good news is, that no matter what else changes in our lives.... our Father in Heaven is CONSTANT.... He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. When the world seems chaotic and unstable we have a Strong Tower and Refuge in our God.
"Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me,
For in you my soul takes refuge.
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
until the disaster has passed.
to God, who fufills his purpose for me.
He sends from heaven and saves me,
rebuking those who hotly pursue me;
God sends his love and his faithfulness...." Psalm 57: 1-3
