Wow. I can’t believe it’s already been 10 years.
Yes, my life was much different then – I was beginning my life as an adult away from my parents and now I’m a mother – but the reality of it all is just as raw to me today as it was then.
This day 10 years ago was the the first month of my freshman year of school at Virginia Tech and, for the first time in my life, I was living on my own. My new home: a large school in a small town more than an 8 hour drive away from my family in NJ.
I woke up to the phone ringing after the first plane hit NY. My first class was at noon, so I was in no rush to get up. At least until that call came through. My long distance high school boyfriend was calling to find out if I knew what was going on. My roommate and I were shaking as we turned on the TV.
One of her parents worked at the Pentagon and my uncle worked in finance in NYC. We both tried, unsuccessfully, to get through to our families for hours. We were a collective mess.
Today, as I watch the 9/11 memoirs and tributes on TV, I find myself just as much an emotional wreck. Maybe it’s because I can now also see that day from my mother’s perspective as she desperately tried to contact her first born child, knowing she couldn’t comfort or protect me. Or, probably, even more because I can only begin to imagine the anguish of the mothers who lost their babies that day.
Today, as I sit here with tears in my eyes, my heart goes out to the families of everyone lost that day and every day since, fighting for our freedom. God bless this country as we continue to heal.
It’s impossible not to remember every minute of that day, it seems. Thank you for sharing! <3
Charise @ I Thought I Knew Mama recently posted..Honoring 9/11