9/11

I was at home, about to leave for work when the news quickly switched over to show one of the towers, with smoke emerging from it. At that time, they didn't have a clue what was about to unfold.

I went onto work, hidden away in my classroom, with my students who were innocent to all that was going on. I tried to hide my concern but was scared all day. At about 10 o'clock that day, when my students went to PE, I along with Jeff & the other second grade teacher, huddled around a tv that I wheeled into my room.

There was still so much chaos but what I will never forget was a phone call that they aired. It was from a man who rushed home to find his wife & little girl were gone. They were from a nearby high rise & although I don't remember all the details...did the wife work at the tower, did he... I don't recall. But I do remember the panic in his voice. And he was crying.

I wasn't a mom then so I couldn't begin to understand the magnitude. Now I do.

So today, I am safely tucked away here in my house with my babies. I am not in New York, waiting in line with thousands others to drop a rose into a pool of remembrance. I am not nervously preparing a speech to memorial a husband, father, mother, sister or brother.

It not only 'just so happens' that myself or none of my love ones live or New York or weren't traveling to DC. There, but by the grace of God, go I....