Where I was on September 11, 2001

I was 5 1/2 months pregnant with my youngest child and partial bed rest, meaning I did as little as I could. Lee's niece, Lindsy, was living with us during her senior in high-school. She was getting ready for school and I'd just woken up Breanna who was in second grade. A neighbor boy, Josh Crittenden, sometimes got a ride with Lindsy in the morning and he came to the front door and told us a plane had just hit a building in New York. I turned on the TV and we all watched the live report. I had no doubt it was a horrible accident. How could a plane go off course like that?

Smoke was pouring out the building, they were talking about all the people trapped on the top floors and then while we watched, a second plane hit a second building. We all went quiet--the whole world did as all doubt that this was an accident disappeared. Lindsy and Josh left for school, I finished getting Breanna ready. Just before she left, the first tower fell. It was horrible. I thought of all the moms who'd sent their kids to school that morning before going to work. All the people with pregnant wives or who were pregnant themselves--people like me who'd had a normal morning. I sat on the couch, watching the replay over and over again and wondering what would happen next. Then the plane hit the pentagon. And then the flight in Boston crashed into the field.

I had never been so grateful to live in little Willard, Utah. I felt safe here. I watched all the broadcasts until I couldn't take it anymore. I cried, I prayed, I wondered what the future would be like for my children.

Six weeks later I had my last child two months early. The following April my oldest child was baptized. In June Lindsy got married. Life went on. I didn't know anyone who died in the towers. I didn't know anyone who knew anyone who died in the towers. But it did change things. My children have grown up in a world that has been at constant war. Some of Lee's family have joined the armed forces. My oldest daughter wants to go into the military. I have the same fear of the future I had then, and yet I have the same faith I had too. Faith that we are strong, that we will move forward, and faith that those people who died were embraced by loved ones on the other side. I believe the intensity of September 11th will happen again. Perhaps several times in my lifetime. It scares me to think about that. I hope that fear is a healthy one, though. That it drives me to hold my children a little tighter, and teach them a little better about what I believe life is about. I still get emotional when I think of that day, and I still pray for those who lost so much. And I still hope for the strength to endure what might come next.