Remembering 9/11

Where were you 5 years ago today?

While reading an Associated Press article this morning about 9/11 one of the victims family members made a comment that I can't get out of my head...

"I think it's important that people remember as years go on," said Diana Kellie, of Acaconda, Mont., whose niece and niece's fiance were killed on one of the planes. "The dead are really not dead until they're forgotten."

So today...
Take a bit of time from your busy life and remember, as painful as it can be, and never forget the lives lost, the families changed forever, and the heroes made by circumstance.

I remember that day exactly as if it were happening right now.
Still...

I'll share it later.
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It's late and raining and the house is quiet other than the sound of Cameron's sleepy breathing over the baby monitor. The window is opened just enough so I can listen to the melody of the rain... I love rain.

We watched Flight 93 tonight.
This isn't the first time I have seen the movie. But it still took me to places of sorrow I don't like to visit often. I have a hard edge. Walls built up over years from scratching my way through life; dealing with a young marriage, a UGLY separation, and finding a meaningful and content place and building trust with the only man I have ever loved. The death of my father far before I was ready, a brother with an addiction to Oxycontin, a medical condition that I hate and still try to deal with, and a change in lifestyle (financially). These things among other have given me cause to build walls that I use as defense mechanisms to protect me from hurt. If you read my blog you have surely noticed my affection for using language unbecoming a lady. Trucker talk as I like to refer to it. This is also a mechanism of protection brought about by dealing with a mother-in-law who thought I stole her precious adoring son and used more four letter words than I had ever heard in my life before I met her. Actually he stole me, truth be told.

None of these things are representative of the soft, caring person I am inside. I am easily hurt. I would bend over backwards to help someone in need, I love passionately and completely, and I am devoted to my family and friends who are beautiful souls that inspire my every day.

So watching movies like Flight 93 shake me to the core of my being. I feel physical pain. Knots in my stomach, emptiness in my soul... But I watch. Because sometimes it is better to feel the pain and see the good it can bring in the ugliest of circumstances.

If you haven't seen the movie see it.

The morning of 9/11 Dennis and I were in bed. I had gotten up with Ash for school and went back to bed after the bus picked her up. I had been up late the night before and easily drifted back off to sleep.

I remember the phone ringing thinking something must be wrong because no one calls at that time of the morning around here I looked at the clock and it was 8:56 a.m. Dennis answered the phone. I heard him say "What?" "Oh my God.." "Ok, see you in a minute..." I sat straight up in bed and said what is wrong? He told me that Jessica my niece had called and a plane had flown in the World Trade Center. We got up and ran to the living room and turned on CNN and watched in horror at what we were seeing. And it only got worse. We were also watching as the second plane flew into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. I screamed and I remember Dennis saying over and over again, "My God...My God...My God..."

We watched and I remember praying "Please Lord...Help the people...Help them home." and feeling helpless and scared.

When the reports started coming in that it was terrorists Dennis and I both were frantic. What was going on? Are we safe? And thinking we have to get Ashley...She needs to be home. Dennis called the school and after 15 minutes or so of busy signals (from all the other parents calling) he got through and was told school would be releasing by 11 a.m. and to please let the buses bring the kids home to prevent chaos.

I paced and worried. And prayed... And watched as the towers collapsed and we cried. Cried for the death of the innocent victims, and life as we knew it. Oblivious to the evil in the world until that day.

We never turned CNN off that day or for days afterwards. Phone calls were made to assure everyone in our family were safe and Dennis and I spent a lot of time trying to explain what had happened to our 10 year-old daughter.

Later that night my family that lives close by all had dinner together. It was somber. We held hands at the table and has a long moment of silence because no words seemed big enough to convey what we all were feeling.

There were lots of hugs and I love you's when we parted ways that night and every night since. I love you...Well Love ya for us..So easy to say and not said enough.

One day I will explain to Cameron what happened on September 11th and we will once again relive that day.

But nothing we will ever encounter will compare to the amount of loss the victims families will endure for the rest of their lives. We can not forget their loss, their pain, the heroes they became and the bright lights that were put out in the face of the ugliest evil I have known in my lifetime.

For them I will always remember...