Just Another Day

It was a day about like this one.   The sky was a robin egg's blue, the sun shining... not that I would know.  I was in the bed, after working a 7 Pm shift at the nursing home.  I had come home and snuggled under the covers, oblivious to the chaos that was ensuing. 

Helen called and woke me up.  "You want to watch this."  And I didn't WANT to watch it, yet Isat there, eyes glued to the TV screen.  Smoke billowing from the towers, emergency vehicles rushing to the scene, newscasters giving their opinions.  A terrorist attack on our own soil?  Oh, sure I knew about the earlier attack a few years prior, remembered footage from Oklahoma City.  But something of this magnitude?

I drove up to my Mamaw Bert's house.  I didn't want to be alone.  I sat there, transfixed, watching the images of the towers collapsing over and over, of the dust and the people running.  Those planes flying straight and the smoke and the fires.  Of people falling from buildings like rubble and of people hugging and crying. 

The next morning my Mom and I went to Bybee Pottery.  We had planned it for a while, for my  birthday.  We went on to Lexingotn and it was eerie how empty the streets were.  The  world hadn't stopped turning, but America stood still for a moment. 

And our Congressmen joined hands on Capital Hill and sang God Bless America.  How far we've come in 11 years...

May we never forget... those innocent men and women who gave their lives that day.  Just another day of going to work, of fighting fires, of saving lives.  Of crunching numbers and sending emails and living... just another day that women kissed their husbands goodbye and sent them to their death over a Pennsylvania field.  "Let's Roll..." Just like any other day.

And today, we're still living and we're still saying goodbye, Men and women in their high rises and our military men and women sacrificing... we're still flying, though with more precautions.  Making it in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.  Thank you to those firefighters, EMTS, doctors, nurses, police officers... to those in uniform, kids like Zach and Jay and Cory, and their wives at home, Kalah and Lyndzee who as newlyweds kissed their Marines goodbye.  Thanks to families like my friends Bobbi and Angie, to my cousin Susan and all of their kids, who sacrifice daily.  Thanks to my Wallace and all his Reserve buddies, and to all who make America great.  And may we never forget... may we never forget 9-11... and may we never forget Who blesses America.