Remembering...

12 years ago today, I was in my cubicle at Ceridian.  My cubicle was on a window, and I was happily working doing Quality Assurance for the payroll software that was being created by the developers.

This was one of those days that will be forever etched in my mind.  It is one of those days, like "where were you when Kennedy was shot?", that remain vivid in our minds, no matter how much time has passed.

I began getting emails about a disaster in New York City.  A plane had crashed into one of the towers of the Trade Center.  I had in my briefcase (and those of you who know me will not be surprised) a tiny portable TV.  I pulled it out, plugged it in and found a local station.  I watched the live broadcast as the news folks were describing the scene.  I was watching when the second plane hit the sister tower.  It was stunning, numbing, frightening.  At that moment my world changed.  The terrorism that was more commonplace in worlds far away was now on our safe and secure land.

Word got out that I had a TV.  Understand that it was a tiny screen, like 2 inches, but it showed enough and shortly I had a crowd trying to see the pictures.  We were watching when the first tower and then the second tower came crashing to the ground.  We mourned the immediate loss of life.  We were horrified.  Some cried, others just stared... wide-eyed our minds unable to process what we had seen and were watching.  No more work would be done in our offices that day.

A TV was finally connected in the conference room.  We wandered in to watch until we could not  handle it any more.  We would go back to our desks and try to do anything to take our minds off of what was happening but soon we were back in the conference room to watch some more.  After the plane hit the Pentagon and then word of the crash of the fourth plane, we were told that we could go home.

At home the TV was on non-stop.  There was not a channel that did not have their own news crews covering or were connected into a news feed if they did not usually do news.  Analysts were trying to make sense of it all.  When there was nothing new to report, they began to pick apart each event.  They tried to put us at ease that the event was over, but we all knew that we would never feel safe and secure again.

Today, 12 years later, I remember those who died.  I remember those working in the Twin Towers whose normal day turned out to be their last.  I remember the brave First Responders who ran into the structures to help save lives.  They did save countless lives, but lost their own when the towers fell.  I remember the people who died in the Pentagon.  I remember the brave civilians who died when they took the plane over from the terrorists and kept it from hitting it's target by crashing it into a field in Pennsylvania.

I remember.  I pray for peace and forgiveness.  I fear for our world and I pray for our leaders that they will make good decisions so that someday the entire world might know the peace and security that we used to have in this country.  I pray....