NINE ELEVEN

Today we are all remembering where we were the instant we heard.
How can we forget?
We shouldn't.

My children were safely sent off to school and I was preparing for my day when my mother called me and told me to turn on my TV.

I barely left it for the next two to three weeks.

My husband and I had been to Switzerland on a two-week vacation. We had been separated but had gotten back together, so this trip was special to me. The first week was with a hiking group that my husband liked to do with a friend. While the group hiked for 4-6 hours per day, I hung out at the Haus and took pictures of the beautiful little village of S-charl where we stayed every night. The next week we took off by ourselves seeing wonderful places aboard the trains. One stop was Zermatt which fascinated me since seeing a Disney movie called 'Third Man on the Mountain' when I was younger. It is not as well known as some of the other Disney movies but one of my favorites nonetheless.

With my mind full of scenic visions and my floor scattered with memorabilia and photos, I was about to put together a scrapbook of our venture across the ocean. Later, I began to see just how lucky we were to have been on a plane coming back to America on the 30th of August.

But right then the phone rang and all I could do was sit in front of the TV with my mouth open, my eyes wide, and pray, barely able to think of anything else. All else paled in comparison and life was reduced down to its simplest form.

Life and death.

Every day I prayed for survivors to be rescued and prayed they would hang on until someone, who was brave, risked their own life to go in all the rubble and find them. I never want to see anyone jump out of a building again. My tears were nothing compared to those who lost loved ones.

I pray for the children left without parents.
I pray for wives left without their husbands.
I pray for husbands left without their wives.
I pray for parents who lost their children and who are now taking care of their grandchildren.
I pray for families who were ripped apart when all they wanted to do was to be together.

It's not fair.


© nancy 9.11.2009