Never Forget ...

... even after 20 years.

It's hard to believe that it's been 20 years since the worse attack on US soil where 2,977 people lost their lives ... but it has.  

Even though I've been blipping for more than 11 years I've never told my story.  It's time ...

I'm sure that most people that were old enough 20 years ago remember exactly what they were doing or where they were when they learned of the horrific terrorist attack.  I certainly do.  

I was working at Wood Dining Services at that time as an accountant.  I was at my desk when someone walked by and said a plane crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings.  Of course, like everyone else I assumed it was an accident ... until a few minutes later when we learned of the second plane crashing into the other building.  Wow! What was going on!?! 

My office building had small workout room that had a television.  After the second crash we all filed into that room to watch it play out on TV.  As we watched in horror and disbelieve ... some of us crying ... I could sense that more was to come.  And even before the first building started to collapse I commented "The building is falling! It's falling!" ... I just couldn't (or didn't want to) believe this was happening.  Knowing that so many lives were lost in that moment was incredibly heartbreaking.  

I remember going home with Richard that night and watching the scene over and over again on TV.  Why do we do that to ourselves?  Maybe it was the hope that there would be some survivors.  And thankfully there were ... just not enough.

My story doesn't stop there.  Only six days before my beloved Dad passed away from cancer at the young age of 69.  We had actually planned to go to San Diego to see my dad before his passing and already had our plane tickets.  Unfortunately he passed before we our flight plans.  But since we had the tickets we still planned to go to California for a memorial service and to see my mom.  

As you know all air travel was canceled for a while after 9/11 so we weren't able to go to California.  I was so upset that I couldn't attend my dad's memorial service I was almost inconsolable.  I took my aggressions out with a hammer on a block of wood that Richard had written a certain name on. Did it make me feel any better?  Only marginally ... but it did feel good.  

It was only fitting that our last Monarch butterfly would emerge today.  We released him in memory of my BIL's sister-in-law.  That story (it's shorter than this one!) can be found here.  We only raised 15 monarchs this year ... not as many as in years past.  But it was still rewarding. 

If you've gotten this far ... thank you!