…………………..I remember visiting the Twin Towers a few times…..I particulary remember going to a cocktail part in the restaurant high up in the tower…..Standing at the edge of one of the ceiling to floor windows you had the sensation of falling out….I had to stand back….The views from this magnificent, miraculous building were exhilarating…..How could I possibly imagine what was to come.
…….There isn’t a person who was living on that horrific day, and who is still living today, that doesn’t remember exactly where they were and what they were doing on the morning of September 11th…………………I remember it vividly…….We woke to a splendid September morning. The weather couldn’t have been finer. A crisp morning with incredibly blue skies. I remember, as I was letting my three puppies out of the kitchen into the back yard……what a fantastic day it was going to be. Jac was upstairs in her Mom’s bedroom helping her get ready for the day. I was in the kitchen making fresh orange juice, and getting breakfast together……I turned on the TV, and on the news all was calm. The report was the weather was going to be a banner day…..I could sense it was going to be a slow news day…..Then it happened. There was a SPECIAL REPORT, never a good thing…..They reported that a plane had struck one of the twin towers! At first they thought it must have been a private passenger plane. I ran upstairs into the bedroom and told them to put the TV on. Jac and her Mom couldn’t understand or believe what they were seeing…..As we watched in horror the second plane hit, and it was clear that this was no accident, but an act of terror…….We were riveted to the TV. As more news and more images came flooding in….seeing the buildings on fire, the people running down the streets as the fireman ran into those buildings was something imprinted on my mind forever. The images of people jumping out of the building, knowing to their deaths, was devastating. I couldn’t imagine how it must have been inside for these people to make this courageous choice…….Then the first collapse…..and then the second…….How could this happen???!!! From that day to this the world has changed…..America…..New York City was always a place of relative safety. Never again will it be thought of that way………TERROR…..took on a new heightened meaning…….As the day unfolded more news….all bad….The Pentagon was hit by a plane…..and the brave passengers of another plane captured the terrorists, but it was too late. They crashed it into a field in PA………………Today 21 years later, we can only remember, and pray for all those lost, and pray this never happens again. The fight for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY was never more fragile.
