Seven years have passed since 9/11, can you believe that?  It’s weird how I can’t recall a visual memory of some things in my life, but I can clearly remember every thing about that day.

I had just dropped the kids at school.  Came home, turned on the ol’ t.v. and poured a cup of joe.  A plane hit the 1st tower.  I remember thinking right off the bat…duh…how does a COMMERCIAL plane hit a huge building?  Was the pilot blind?  Then the horrible live feed of the 2nd plane taking aim.  I said out loud…’oh no! oh no!’ as it was heading for the other tower. 

I picked up the phone and called my mom at work.  “Can you get to a t.v.?  Oh my God, get to a t.v.”  When the plane that came down in Shanksville was still in the air, I went and picked up my kids.  A lot of other parents were there.  It was a very solemn feeling.  Trying not to alarm anyone, yet everyone just wanting to get the hell home with their kids. Still as I write this, I have tears in my eyes.  The pain of what happened to our Country that day is still like a fresh wound.

The flag stores were completely sold out of flags.  Everyone and their brother had a flag on their home…on their car.  I remember my then young daughter asking if ‘we should really put a flag outside on the house…what if the bad guys new Americans lived here’.

People in passing greeted you with a slight smile and a nod.  Suddenly traffic didn’t bother anyone.  You’d let some in front of you ‘just to be nice’ and they gave a wave in their rear view mirror to thank you.  Doors were held open.  Everyone was in fog.  It was like everyone was at the same great big funeral that lasted for a long time.

The skies were SO quiet for like a week.  It’s weird how the daily contrails become mundane.  The daily sound of air traffic came to a halt.  And then when the sky-ways opened again you couldn’t help giving a quick look up when you heard a plane. 

So much about that day has been debated, debunked and questioned.  But the ‘who, why, and how’ is not as important this day as the ‘when’.  The ‘when’ was September 11, 2001…the day when history will show, was the day our lives were forever changed in many, many ways.