I Still Remember...

I remember it like it was yesterday. It's hard to believe it's been 7 years.

I was exactly 1 month and 1 day graduated from college. I had broken my right pinky toe the day before and the side of my foot was all black and blue. I had just made my first trip to New York 3 months earlier. I was still living at home with my parents, jobless. I was the only one home. For some reason I got up early that morning and as usual, turned on the Today Show. It was a gorgeous day in New York and a gorgeous day here in Nashville as well. I went to use the bathroom and came back to find that the Today Show had cut to live coverage. Matt Lauer said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. My first reacation was, "well, some air traffic control guy is about to lose his job." I automatically assumed it was a small plane. I got a bowl of cereal, and while I was eating it, the second plane hit. Matt Lauer and Katie Couric were just as shocked and scared as all of us were as they were watching it happen right before their eyes just like everyone else. For me, it hadn't really sunken in yet the magnitude of what was going on. All the news rolling in of the Pentagon and United 93 in Pennsylvania seemed like a blur. I really couldn't wrap my brain around what was going on. Then when the first tower fell, that's when it finally hit me--there were people in there. That's when I lost it.

I remember going to run some errands and thinking how eerie everything felt. There were no planes in the sky. My neighborhood is right in the path of take off and landing for the airport so that was very strange. People were just sort of walking around in a daze.

For the next several days, just like everyone else, I was immersed in the news. It took a major toll on me 3 days later, on Friday, at a job interview. Since my initial breakdown when the first tower fell, I hadn't cried since. Between then and Friday, I watched footage of families in New York putting up missing signs for their loved ones, the hospital ER staffs all prepared for triage and traumas and...nothing. It was horrible. I was sitting in the lobby of News Channel 5 for an interview with their ad sales department. As you can imagine at a TV station, there's a TV in the lobby tuned to--you got it--the news. I don't know why, but I completely broke down at that interview. (I didn't really want that job anyway...)

I remember for the next couple of weeks, MTV (I was an MTV junkie back then) ran the same videos over and over on a loop. It seemed like every time I switched over they were playing the video for Stay by The Dave Matthews Band. Now that's what I think of every time I hear it.

I'm almost positive there isn't anything I recall as vividly as that day, and I'm sure I'll never forget it. It gives me cause to continually thank God for firefighters and police men and women--two occupations I have a little bit of interest in. :) I also thank God for all the men and women serving in the armed services keeping our country safe. And this year I'll add a prayer that whomever the Lord wants as our new president, that He'll put him there and give him the wisdom and the know how to continue to keep us safe.