I was the Executive Director at The Lake Crystal Area Recreation Center, in Lake Crystal Minnesota. I am not entirely sure if I got a phone call from my mom or sister or if Michelle, who was working in the daycare room, or Linda or Carrie, who would have been working the front desk, came to get me to watch the TV, but I was at work when the news about the terrorist attacks came on. It was at a time during the day that we were not typically busy as most of the people had been in and exercised and were off to work. I do remember my family calling. It was a persons first instinct. Call your family and friends. But if you were watching it on TV or listening to it on the radio, you could not pull yourself away from it. It was the most intense thing a person could ever dream of watching. The only other thing that came close was the Oklahoma bombing.
I don't remember the times the towers fell, but I remember the feeling I had when the first one went down. I think all hope in mankind fell with it. It was the most overwhelming feeling of sadness a person could experience, not actually being present and watching it. I sat in the rocking chair that Michelle would use to rock the little people she watched, rocking back and forth as if that was going to make what was happening, more tolerable. I was surrounded by my employees, but I had never felt so alone. You almost felt as if everything should close, shut down and everyone go home and lock their doors.
I don't think anyone will forget where they were, or what was going on in their life. It is ingrained in our hearts and minds forever. I remember being completely in shock until I saw the coverage of the people jumping out of the windows. How on earth did they know they would not make it? How on earth did they know what was about to happen? What was going through their minds when at that moment they jumped, thousands of feet above the ground, knowing, they were not going to live? I think that is when it really hit me that this was not a movie, this was not a drill, this was not a joke. I'd like to think I would not have jumped but who knows until you are forced to make that decision. I'd like think I would loan my phone to people who needed to call loved ones. I'd like to think I would have tried to save lives.
No matter how you cut it, it was one of the worst days in America's history. Ten years later my heart breaks for the family members who never received closure because their loved ones were dissolved into thin air. Or the the loved ones of the passengers in the plane that crashed into Pennsylvania, also leaving nothing of themselves but their memories.
I know the world stopped turning that day. All of our worlds did. And I don't know that we have ever been the same country since. I have no clue what possesses a person to become a member of our armed forces. I do know there are no words to thank those that have, do, and will. I will never fully grasp the magnitude of what they do for all of us. I know I lay my head down at night knowing friends and family have loved ones overseas protecting us every second of every minute of every hour of every day.
Bucket List #3-I need to visit Ground Zero. I don't think you can put something like this into perspective until you do. I think it is something we all should do and something you do and show your children. There were children born after that day who never met their fathers...that is not something I can wrap my hands around.
My mothers boyfriend served in Vietnam. Again not something I can understand. But when I watch his reaction to the Flag, the National Anthem, Taps, anything having anything to do with our country, I see the cover that drapes over him as he remembers what it was like to serve his country, but also that he CAN understand and wrap his hands around something so unbelievable.
I will visit this place and I will not speak. In honor of those who went to work that day not having a clue in the world it was their last day on earth. As much as I hate Cancer, and everything about it, you can't argue that it gives a person a heads up. These people got on those planes, went to work, as if tomorrow would come like it had every day prior. But it didn't.
I would like to think that I have learned to treasure my life and those in it more, but as with life, we all manage to get carried away and forget. I am pretty good, I really am, at telling people how I really feel because if I was not here tomorrow, I want people to know where they stand with me. It is really important that you tell those who you love that you love them. Don't take for granted that "they know." You can never, ever, tell someone you love them, too much. If you think you can, ask those who don't have their loved ones here anymore to say it to.
I have chosen this song because it has a lot of meaning to me, for many reasons, but when I think of that day, this song seems to sum up how I was feeling the moment this happened. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED
May God Bless each and everyone of our troops and their families. It is a sacrifice many of us would not be willing to make. And may God Bless all of those families who lost loved ones on this terrible day.
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