Take a Minute to Recall 8 Years Ago

It’s hard to remember a state of complete confusion. I had dropped my boys off at school and was listening to one of least funny morning comedy routines that I had heard in a while. Something about the airport but I couldn’t make any sense of it. We were scheduled to fly to St. Louis tomorrow to attend a high school re-union.

I called my wife and said “I think something has happened, I am not sure if we will be able to fly out of SFO tomorrow.”

Ever the practical women she said “Don’t worry about it, I am sure that they will have it cleared up by tomorrow.”

At work I watched two huge buildings fall to the ground over and over again, alternating with people jumping off of them holding hands as they fell. A crowd had gathered in the conference and everyone was stunned.

At home, I watched television until three in the morning, flipping across the different news channels watching the same ten to fifteen minutes of content that each one had get recycled until I had memorized it all.

I felt like I was sucking on a straw at the bottom of a glass full of ice. You can get a little bit of water for a lot of noisy effort, and then you have to wait a while for more ice to melt. There was only so much information I could pull out of the television and now I would have to wait a while.

I remember thinking that I might not be leaving my sons a better world than the one I had been given.

Total confusion.

But many stories of heroism and sacrifice. Worth taking a minute to remember some time today.

“I got up on the morning of the 12th. It wasn’t much sleep, maybe it was 45 minutes. And I got up to actually watch the sun come up, to make sure it came up. When I saw it come up, I had this great feeling of strength…Now we’ve got to fight back.” Rudy Giuliani