All About You FRIDAY – I Remember

New York skyline silhouette with Twin Towers and against the sunset. 09.11.2001 American Patriot Day banner

It was a Tuesday. I had gotten my son off to school and had managed to make it to the gym to get a quick workout in. I raced home to shower and get ready to head to the college to teach my classes.

Our house was in a perpetual state of construction, mostly because my husband was so busy that the many projects he had started were sitting in limbo, including our primary bedroom bathroom and closet. The bedroom had a bed in it but no carpeting or storage of any kind. We had constructed a quick “full bathroom” in our basement laundry room, installing a bathtub and toilet, but using the laundry tub as our sink and some temporary shelving as clothing storage.

And my husband’s woodworking shop was our detached garage. It would be a few years before he would outgrow it and move into an industrial space.

I remember I was just drying off from my shower when I heard a stampede of footsteps racing down the basement steps. I quickly threw on some clothes and whipped open the door to see Doug and his employees staring at the only TV in our house. The basement looked small with all those men standing in it.

That TV, by the way, was one of the first flat panel plasma screens made available to the consumer market by Panasonic. Heavy and small by today’s standards, Doug had acquired it as a trade for building some custom cabinetry for a local retailer. Retail value $7,500. I thought it was ridiculous.

But now on that screen were images that will be etched in my memory forever. They barely noticed me as four set of eyes were fixated on the image of the first tower burning with a hole in the side of it. 17 minutes later we witnessed the plane penetrating the second tower. 34 minutes after that the Pentagon was hit. 26 minutes after that, hijacked United Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

Time stopped. The world as we had known it ceased to exist. We were paralyzed. Staring. Glued to the TV for hours as the images seemed to be playing over and over. I’m not sure it was helpful, but we didn’t know what else to do.

I was thinking about how 9/11 to the younger generations of today would be much like how I regarded the Vietnam War or WWII. I heard stories. And I saw movies. But I had no real emotional connection to those conflicts and their associated tragedies.

In the aftermath of 9/11 attacks, I witnessed heroics of epic proportion. First responders running in while others ran out. People caring for others. Volunteers mobilizing to ground zero.

Churches were overflowing. Prayers were ascending. People were taking care of each other. There was even reports of New Yorkers greeting each other on the sidewalk, an anomaly for that city. We united as a country because no man is an island especially in times like that. We looked for something to do to make things better. To fix the unfixable. Somehow through the tragedy, we felt the impact of millions of small acts of kindness. For a moment, the world became a softer place to live.

In the worst of times, I witnessed the best of humanity.

I remember a preacher once saying, “The good is only as good as the bad is bad.”

It makes me wonder why it takes a tragedy like that to bring out the best in all of us. What if we prayed fervent prayers like that everyday? What if we looked out for our fellow man and took care of them now? What if we could unite and figure out ways to fix things in our own corner? What if it didn’t take mass destruction to make us cherish the life we have and the people in it?

What if?

It’s why it’s important to remember. Because nothing is stopping us from being that way now.

It’s been a long week. Don’t forget to celebrate. And remember. Always.

Until next time…