Remembering 9-11

Tomorrow is September 11th. Do you remember where you were when you first heard about the events occuring during 9-11-01?



Because I am on Mountain Time, I heard the news on the radio about half way into work. At that point they thought it was an accident. And then the second plane hit the second tower. It so happened that my work had CNN on several TV's in what we called a Network Operations Center (NOC) and one wall of the NOC was nothing but glass. I gathered with about 12 other co-workers at that glass watching the events unfold, all of us in horror. Well, except one person who was asking if they could get a server overnighted to a customer. The magnitude of the events were not registering, even after we told them that ALL flights in the ENTIRE US were grounded. And then another coworker mentioned under her breath (oh, all of those people...). That was when the first tower collapsed.

None of the people on the hijacked airplanes survived. The total death toll of the attacks was 2,996 including the 19 hijackers. People from over 70 countries were killed and overwhelmingly were civilians.

I went home early, gathered my children and spent the rest of the day with my family watching the news, thanking heaven that my family was safe. After tucking the kids in, I sat on the back patio. I will never forget the silence and the lack of airplanes in the sky. It was so powerful to only see our military flying in a grid patrolling our airspace, keeping us safe.

So tomorrow, give pause to remember those who needlessly died in the name of hatred, and their families who suffered and had to find the strength to somehow move on.

Peace.