Four Years Later

My friend has a baby due today. Whether he will born today is yet to be seen but waking up this morning, as an American, was a little sad.

It's one of those moments we'll all remember where we were when it happened. I was at my daughter's gymnastics class that morning, pregnant with another baby on the way way. Someone came running into the gym and turned on the TV.

"A plane hit the World Trade Center."

"That's strange," I thought. "How did someone not see that?"

You see, in my mind, I imagined it was some bi-plane that got off course. I watched the TV, just smoke and fire, not realizing how large the hole really was. Then they showed the re-play. And I realized that someone had actually done it on purpose. A jetliner was shown over and over crashing straight into the building. It was no accident.

I squeezed my daughter to me and the only place I wanted to be was home.

I drove home, my eyes on the skies wondering what was happening, glancing at my toddler in the backseat blissfully unaware how her future was changing. I threw open my front door yelling for my husband but he was already in front of the TV.

"Did you hear?" I asked.

"Yes, both towers are hit."

"Both?" I dropped on to the couch and stared in shock at the smoke billowing from the buildings.

We watched the TV as the live reporting we have come to expect now shows horrible images. We learn of the attack on the Pentagon...just a few miles north of us...and we begin to wonder where it will end. We hear random reports of other highjacked planes. We wait and watch to see if more crashes will come, for the first time feeling unsafe in our own country. I think for a moment that I wish we didn't live so close to DC. My mind runs down my friends who have husbands that work in the Pentagon - I can't imagine what they are going through.

On live TV we watch a tower collapse and then almost half an hour later, a pile of rubble remains where the towers stood.

"I can't imagine New York without the Twin Towers."

"They're just...gone. How can that happen?"

For days we watched the coverage, unable to tear ourselves away. The deathtoll figures that jumped higher then lower. The reports of heros...and victims. The heartbreaking pictures of those looking for loved ones.

Over the next few weeks, we also watched the American flags begin to fly. everywhere you looked, people felt more American. We felt more like a community. As horrible as 9/11 was, it drew us together as a nation. We have to remember what happened so we'll remember what we are still fighting for.

Say a prayer today for the families that lost loved ones on this day. Where September 11th does not hold the anticipation of a birth but the rememberance of a loss. May God comfort their hearts and surround them with His peace.