September 11, 2001.

On September 11, 2001, I headed into work at SIRH as a scheduler, I was 26 years old. This day was like every other day, I sat at my desk right next to Donna Poff, and we were answering the phone's that were always ringing off the hook. I had my brown sugar and cinnamon pop tart, and in between phone calls, was doing the usual morning chat. Around 8:50-8:55, Mike Hensley, came up to our desk kind of frantic, "Did you hear? An airplane flew into one of the twin towers!!"

I immediately thought of my trip to NYC when I was a senior in high school. I remember thinking, how in the world would a plane fly into one of those buildings? They are so visible, and all packed in so tight, that must be a mistake. Within minutes the buzz was that another plane flew into the OTHER twin tower.

Paul and I had only been dating for a month, and I called him. "Have you heard about planes flying into the twin towers?" Paul being the 'not get easily excited' kinda guy he is, pretty much gave me no information. So, I called Dana Albertson. She had the news on, and gave me the play by play of what was going on. It was bad.

It was so hard to work. What I remember though, was EVERYONE seemed to shut down. Phones quit ringing, except family and friends calling to give us the latest. We turned on the radio, and heard of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, and then United Airlines Flight 93. By this point it was madness. I didn't know what was true, and I just wanted to go home.

When I got home, I turned on the t.v., to find horrible, horrible images. I don't know that I moved all night. I had never seen anything like this, and I was unaware of terrorism. I had heard of it, but didn't really understand it at all. This was a crash course into evil.

I attended special church services, watched tons of t.v., and cried at the stories and images. One of the things I remember the most was having my radio on a public, secular station, and then hearing Bob Russell on there praying. Our nation was totally different for a while. Too bad that couldn't have lasted. This was also before I was a mom. I know that if this were to happen today, I would have had much different fears and anxieties.

Years later, I watched the movie, about flight 93. I sobbed. Those people knew the death they were facing, but they fought back as hard as they could. They also had the chance to call their loved ones and tell them goodbye, that breaks my heart.

Ten years later. Sometimes it seems much longer than that to me, and yet the feelings when I write about it, are like it was yesterday. As cliche' as it sounds, I will never forget. How could I? And I never want to. The least I can do is have a heavy heart, every year on September 11.