Where were you on September 11th??

I can remember when I was a young girl my mother telling me how she would never forget where she was and what she was doing the day the news came over the radio about the attack on Pearl Harbor! She was doing housework. When she heard this news she said she suddenly felt nauseated. I put that conversation between Mom and myself in the back of my mind. This is the 2000's, after all, and we all felt so safe and busy that nothing like what happened at Pearl Harbor could possibly ever happen here today! I think alot of people felt the same way.

On Wednesday, September 11th, 2001 I was talking with one of my dearest friends from back in my hometown. She now lives in the same town I currently live in. She is in her 80's and still sells Avon to me. I call she and her husband, Mr. & Mrs. Avon! I was cheerful and oblivious to what had happened in New York. She told me what she had seen on the news about the Twin Towers. I just discounted it as another airplane accident--some pilot making a miscalculation and flying into an office building! I like so many others have become so hardened to things that have either already happened or could happen. Our movies and TV shows have shown us horrible things in the past, therefore, many of us aren't so afraid of or shocked by alot of things anymore. At the time I was 47-years-old. I am a part of the group that is probably considered the "tail-end" of the Baby Boomers. People my age had come through the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm fairly unscathed. We have so many conveniences today. We're so busy! Any wars that are going on seem so far away from most of us. I came to believe and gather security from all these things. I felt extremely secure and sheltered from all danger because danger never came that close to me--and if it did, it didn't stay long!

My friend, the Avon lady, couldn't understand my inital response to her news at all! To her I seemed unshocked by the news she had just told me. After hanging up the phone, I got in my car to deliver a package to a friend in a nearby town. I drove past the little municipal airport along the way to get where I was going. I listened to the car radio. All of a sudden I grew very conscious of the airplanes flying around overhead. All at once the reality of everything I had heard on the TV and Mrs. Avon had triggered a sense of fear deep within me. After delivering my package I drove back home quickly. I have always enjoyed my "alone time" but not at that moment. I felt truly alone in my home. I became afraid and realized that my children were at school, my husband was at work, and I had no one to share my feelings with. My world was no longer secure! I wasn't so busy to listen to the news anymore!

Later that night I got the strong urge to go to church to be with other people, so we could share our feelings and pray for the victims and for OURSELVES! As I drove down the street I could see lines of cars heading up to the gas station to get in what appeared to be a ever-growing line to buy gas. Fear was now everywhere mixed with greed! I drove off to the local Y where a community prayer service was being held that evening. I walked inside and sat down in a semi-circle with other people--most of whom I had never seen before even though they live in the same town as me. It was a non-denominational service. They sang songs I wasn't familiar with. I wanted so much to pray for the victims and their families - and - ask God and my parents (both deceased) to pray for me and rest of us in that gym to grant us the same kind of strength that got my parents through their Pearl Harbor! And, I also prayed that nothing like 9/11 would ever happen again!

Please pray for peace!