Warning: some images may be disturbing as they depict people falling from buildings.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light… ~St Francis of Assisi
We must remember who we are, we will be the key ~Glenn Beck
Stealth Magnolia 
I was visiting a friend in Annapolis (Hi Sallie!) and getting ready for a day of antiquing and other fun girlfriend stuff. It was a gorgeous September morn, sipping coffee on her beautiful deck in the deep Maryland woods. Then the phone rang, her husband told us to turn on the t.v. and he was coming right home.
For the next few hours, in numbness, was trying to get ahold of my daughter who lived and worked in downtown Manhattan. Sometimes at the WTC, she was a bike messenger, and could have been anywhere in the city at that time. As luck would have it, she overslept and she would be fine. Though she witnessed collapse of both towers from the roof of her Village apt a few blocks away. Her and her messenger friends then rushed to the scene on their bikes to assist first responders with delivering medical supplies and other necessities to the then locked down South of Canal street area.
Meanwhile, after the Pentagon, and PA, my friends and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, a feeling that wouldn’t leave me (and all of us?) for days.
A few days later and since the airlines were still grounded, I made it home on Amtrak, packed in with the crews of airlines stranded in the Northeast. I felt like I was in a third world country on an evacuation train. Most where in the same clothes they were wearing on 9-11 when they were forced to land at airports other than their destinations…..and home bases. Some had even spent a couple of days on those planes, as it took 24-48 hours to “clear” them of other evil-doers. But life gave them a reason to smile, so the annoyance of it all didn’t seem to bother them at all.
Home safely, and feeling the sweetness in home again, my son signed up to be a Federal Air Marshal a few days later.
Tommorrow we commemorate the memory of the victims for the 9th year and I find myself hoping, that Michelle Obama, in her role as First Lady, doesn’t tell the families she knows how they feel.
After the towers went down I was numb. Walked out on my deck, it was so quiet with all the planes grounded. I watched as, what I thought, was the last plane to come in at Cleveland Hopkins fly overhead. I kept watching it as it banked and flew North toward the lake, then banked again and flew West. It was Flight 93. I didn’t realize at the time, but thought it was so strange it hadn’t landed. I got a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach and somehow knew it was another hijacked plane. When I went back in, they were announcing the plane had crashed in PA. The memory of that will be burned in my brain forever and I will never forget. I chose my avatar, the Teardrop, a gift from Russia, to memorialize the brave people who died in that plane crash that day to save the lives of so many others. Today I cried, tomorrow I will cry again. Although I didn’t know anyone who died that day in the planes or the Twin Towers, they were and still are my countrymen and I will grieve for all of them until the day I die.
Lynn, {{{{hugs}}}} Thanks for stopping by and sharing. “I know how you felt” 😉
I remember the cool Tuesday morning. I remember the thunderous sound on the other end of the Bankers Trust phone call. I remember Megan crying. I remember waiting with Mike in our evacuated building for the day’s trades to settle. I remember recalled flights stacking up over Dulles. I remember the rising smoke from the Pentagon littering the skyline. And I will never forget that smell. I remember September 11th, 2001.
Jack {{{hugs}}} Thanks for stopping by and sharing your memories. I won’t forget either.
You know where I’ve been today (9-11), remembering that crisp morning and all that followed. The utter disbelief as we stood in front of the TV, not believing our eyes! The first words out of your mouth were, “our lives will never be the same!” I remember the phone call from Jack, “Where’s Dad?” who would have been at the Pentagon that morning but for a last-minute change of plans. The impossiblity of getting a phone call through to Katie and the hours of holding our collective breath until we heard she was okay. And I remember thinking of a woman I had met on Amtrak one one of my return trips to New York. She worked at the WTC as was commuting between there and Wilmington, DE. We had such a nice visit. I have wondered since then if she survived the attack. That day we were all Americans. I hope we can remember that as well and return there again. Hugs & Love to my dear friend!