Taken from my journal:

I figure someday, someone will wonder what I was doing on September 11, the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon and the plane that crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.

I’m writing this exactly six months later and I pretty much remember everything that happened that day.  Will I ever forget that day?  Don’t people still talk about what they were doing when JFK  was shot?

I remember I got the kids up and we were getting ready for school.  We were still not quite used to having to be at the bus stop at 8:30 am to get Camden off to first grade, and had our usual struggles to get there on time.  But we did, and after the bus came, I drove Jake up to KinderCare in Eldersburg. 

After dropping him off at “preschool” I went happily on my way to yoga class in Columbia.  I remember I was on Marriottsville Road heading south, almost to the Route 70 on ramp when I first heard about it.  I would have been a little after 9:00 am.  The news person came on the radio with the report.  She said that a second plane had crashed into the second WTC building and it was now considered a terrorist attack. 

I was stunned.  My heart started beating fast and it was hard to breath!  How could someone launch a terrorist attack on American soil?  My head spun as I continued to drive to my yoga class.  I was sure the two towers would collapse.  How could they not when two planes had crashed into them?

I got to The Yoga Center parking lot around 9:30 am.  I sat in the car listening to a Washington, DC radio station.  They were getting reports that a plane may have crashed into the Pentagon!  This was getting close to home.  Very scary stuff.  As it was time to go inside they had confirmations that a third plane had indeed hit the Pentagon.  I knew I had to go inside if only so I could dedicate the energies of my practice to the victims and their families.

In class, we all huddled around and talked about how scary the morning’s happenings were and how we were feeling about it.

I have to say, Kathy Donnelly did a fabulous job of getting us through a grounding practice and relieving some of our anxieties.  But as we were doing our ending relaxing meditations, I had the horrible thought that David could be called to war if things escalated and we retaliated!  That brought me to tears.  She ended the class with a group hug. 

(A few weeks later, one of the girls in class admitted she had no idea what was going on that day and didn’t understand at the time what all the fuss was about.  Poor thing.)

I drove home in a hurry, listening to the news for further updates.  I heard that a plane had crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, and it was thought to have been headed for another, unknown site and may have been foiled by passengers.  I also heard that they were closing schools in the area since we were so close to DC. 

I stopped by home to see if Dave had gotten home or if I needed to pick him up.  He was there watching the news.  I grabbed him and we hugged, I was crying.  We discussed what was going on.  He was the one who told me the two towers had indeed fallen, just a short time before I got home.  We watched a short bit of the news on TV, then he went with me to get Camden at school.

There were already quite a few parents at the school, getting their own and neighbors kids.  When I picked up Jake at KinderCare, the teachers explained that one child had come in to school after having heard about the crashes on TV and had told the children what had happened.  But the teachers had given the children a basic, matter-of-fact account of the happenings (almost exactly what I ended up telling them later) and they had seemed happy with that.  Ah, the bliss of the four-year old!

I told the kids on the way home, that all the parents were worried and scared today cause some bad men had stolen some airplanes and made them crash into two different buildings.  That made lots of people die and it was scary, but that WE were safe and sound at home and they shouldn’t worry.  Camden seemed a bit concerned, but Jake was fine.

Wes came home for a short period of time to make sure we were all safe (he couldn’t get through on the cell phone — lines were tied up), but then had to return to work to restore order and normalcy!  The rest of the day was spent watching news reports in my room, and try to make life normal for the kids.  School resumed as normal the next day.

Over the next few weeks, I tried not to listen to news accounts on the radio or watch extensive amounts of TV coverage in front of the boys.  I didn’t think their young minds needed to be crowded with the images and horror of it all.   But I still kept them updated when something big happened, and they saw some pictures of “ground zero”, so they knew what was going on.

It was awesome to see how the country came together at this time.  Stores with changeable signs all had a patriotic saying, “God Bless America” or “Pray for the victims families” or “Proud to be American”.  Everyone was flying flags right off the bat.  It was so inspiring.  This was the first time in my life that I wanted to fly an American flag, and I was ashamed that I didn’t own one.  They flew off the store shelves, too, and were hard to find.   I did find a car flag within the week.  I found a big one to hang in my bedroom window within a few weeks. 

Even three months later, at Christmas time, flags were still part of the decorations.  And red, white and blue Christmas lights were the norm, it seemed.  It was so cool and touching to see such extended shows of patriotism.