PATRIOT'S DAY - I

Where were you that day?  Most of us will never forget where we were on that terrible day. I remember exactly where I was standing. September 11 is my birthday.  Weather was perfect that day so we invited my mother to join us for just a fun car trip to some sites right here in Iowa.  We had been watching Good Morning America and were just ready to shut the TV off as we were leaving when there was a report of the first plane hitting one of the towers.  At that point my husband and I assumed it was a horrible accident but as the day unfolded the horror of it hit us hard.

In 2002 we visited the site where Flight 93 went down outside Shanksville PA.  The emotion of being there was so strong that I couldn't speak.  A farmer who lives very close by told of how his cattle went into the woods and wouldn't come out for days.  Since then we have visited two more times to see how the memorial has grown.  It is beautiful!  We were also determined to see the memorial in New York and did that a few years ago.  It is also a beautiful memorial to all those lives lost.

Twenty years later and this day still brings tears to my eyes as I see reports on the news.  This year seeing the video of Diane Sawyer and mothers trying to get babies (born after 9/11) together for a photo brought smiles and some laughter.  Then this morning they also showed some of them 20 years later all grown up and how some of them truly resemble the fathers who were lost in 2001.

My heart will forever ache for the families who lost loved ones on that horrible day and for the brave police and fire fighters who worked so diligently on the rubble afterwards trying to find survivors.  The last survivor was pulled out after 27 hours.  

We will never forget!