story1210.xml

story1210.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-19

I woke up that morning and it took a second to remember where I was. My family was staying at a friend's house due to a house fire that gutted our home. It worked out well because they were on vacation in Turkey. My three year old woke me up from his nearby crib. I looked at the clock and remember thinking I was getting a late start. I turned on the TV. My eight year old had watched it last and left it on channel 29. Strange movie, I thought when I saw what was on. Paying little attention to it, I turned the channel. It took but a second and the disbeliefe set in. How could that happen? Switching to CNN, I sat for the next two hours, barely moving. When the first tower fell, I felt a thud in my heart. When the second fell, I knew my heart broke. And so it was that the world changed. We saw the worst in people and the best, side by side, each soon to be before a higher power to be judged. We came together as a nation in our shared grief. 9-11 opened our eyes to a world that too many of us ignored. It is my sincerest hope that the U.S. does not again sink into the thinking we are not connected to the world as a whole. (We are number one, just not the only one!)