Where were you?

Where were you?

I know that everyone is thinking about that today.  I know that I am.  I will never forget.  I will always remember the feelings that morning.

I had just started a new job the day before, had been in orientation all day, so this was my first day in my new office. 

Trav paged me – told me to find a tv and turn it on. 

The people in my office were in shock.  One of the lawyers had a little 4 inch tv in his office and we all crowded around and watched the second plane hit.

One of my new coworkers was having a panic attack – she thought we had just seen the beginning of World War III.  So did I.

I felt total disbelief and then an anger like none I had ever felt before.  Then fear.  Then horror.  Then an overwhelming sadness that I am still feeling today.

I knew.  I have no idea how I knew this, but I did.  I knew that the world as I had known it my entire life had just shifted.  And it would never be the same again.  I was right.

They closed the schools and universities…including the one I had just started working at, at noon.  And I stopped at the way home to call my mom.  I needed to hear her voice, to be reassured that there was still some form of normalicy left.  I heard her voice, but it was difficult to understand her as she was crying so hard.  We kind of just hung on those handsets and sobbed for a few and then took deep breaths, said I love you and hung up.  I drove home and went straight to her and we hugged for a long time. 

I will never forget those feelings…the totality of that act.  The brutality of it and the hate and the simplicity with which it was accomplished.  I will never forget the love we felt for each other and the feeling of coming together as a nation and as a people.  The feeling of helplessness because, even with my training, there was nothing I could do, nowhere I could go to help heal those hurts or help stop the pain of those left behind.

Fast forward to today.  I now know some of the families of those that did manage to find ways to help.  Survivors of those heroes.  I have met and listened and heard and hurt and loved.  I think I am finally finding a way to help, to be there, to maybe, just maybe, heal a little part of their broken hearts by loving them and their hero from the bottom of my heart.

Where were you?