Where were you on this day?

I had just dropped my daughter off at school and come home. I had a a little while where I could weed some flowerbeds before I needed to go shower and get ready to pick my mom up at the airport. She was coming in to town to visit for Grandparents' Day at my daughter's school.

While I was weeding, my cell phone rang. It was my sister. When I saw it was her, I was afraid that Mom had gotten ill and couldn't make the trip.

"Hey, what's going on?"

"Have you seen the news?"

"No, why? What's going on?"

"Well, a couple of planes have hit the Twin Towers in New York...they've grounded all flights in the U.S. It's bad."

"WHAT?"

I could not picture what was happening in NY, but knowing that every flight in the U.S. was grounded told me that this was something truly horrible.

"Go inside and turn on the news. It's bad. Mom's at home; she hadn't left for the airport yet, but she won't be coming for a while. It's bad."

I rushed in and watched the news in horror. Other news began to surface, like a plane down in Pennsylvania, and another hitting the Pentagon. I went to pick my daughter up at school, talked to my husband on the phone. I wanted to have those I was closest to, close to me.

In the days and weeks that followed, I remember fighting off panic as the story unfolded. I no longer felt safe. My heart broke for the people who had lost loved ones. The stories of the heroism that surfaced were unbelievable. I will always remember 9/11/2001.