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Remembering Today (more important than a horn lesson)

Yesterday, at the beginning of the US Open, while Boys to Men sang America the Beautiful, a giant American flag was unrolled to cover the tennis court. It got to me a little bit, because I'm a true patriot, and because I knew that the next day would be September 11th. #1 thought I was being a gaggy sap--while I think it's important to avoid being a gaggy sap about most things, and I have purged words like "precious" and "special" from my vocabulary, I do believe it's important to maintain a sense of awe at our national symbols. And I think it's important to remember today with a level of respect and honor that might cause others to think I'm a gaggy sap.

On September 11, 2001, I was still working in the office at Husband's company. I was standing by the coffee maker, which is quite often where I could be found, and Mary the Marketing Woman asked if I had heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I thought it was a little Cessna, and thought, "how stupid could the pilot be to not see a giant tower in Manhattan?" It didn't occur to me that it could have been an actual commercial jet and that it could have been intentional and that there could have been more to follow. Something so horrific and inhuman doesn't occur to the typical person. I'm pretty typical, I think.

We had made some small efforts to cut back on costs that year, so we no longer had cable TV in the office. We only had radios here and there, and because our business is in a metal building far, far, far away from most radio programming of interest, I had to fiddle with the dial a bit to find any kind of report. I landed on Aaron Brown, who was working for ABC at the time, and he was witnessing the event from across the Hudson. A few of us sat in my office listening, trying to picture the unimaginable, and holding our breath.

Husband gathered all the employees, close to 100 at the time, into the big conference room, and we all prayed. Afterward, I sat at my desk unable to work--I remember specifically that my job that day was to design a cover for a romance book. It seemed so foolish (OK, it kind of always feels foolish), but at that particular time, it was particularly foolish.

I went home and picked my kids up from school--I just couldn't get them home fast enough to where I could see them and touch them. We sat in front of the TV and listened to Peter Jennings (network news God) report what would be the most memorable event my generation would experience to that date. I used to think that if Peter Jennings could tell me that everything was OK, then everything really would be OK. He wasn't able to reassure anyone during those days. It was not going to be OK. It still isn't OK.

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