Where I was
Often times when I am gone and my kids are home with Laren and they did not see me leave when I come back home they ask me where I was. Sometimes it is a place that they wish they knew I was going so they could have come with me and sometimes they are just as happy they did not know because they had no interest.
One particular day I remember it was a Tuesday, middle of the week, nothing big was going on. Our oldest, Kayla, was in Kindergarten and we lived in Mesa, Arizona. I had plans on going to the cannery to get us some stuff for Drypack (oatmeal, rice, beans and powdered milk) because I was working on our Food Storage. I was so excited there was a crisp coolness in the air after Arizona's hot summer.
I basked in the relative coolness of the morning when I stepped out on my back porch. I also had plans to get icing buckets from a local bakery that would give them to me for free if only I washed them out myself. I was going to use the buckets for my granular sugar. And the one other errand for the day was to go to the Toyota Dealership and get the antennae fixed on my car that had gotten broken when I inadvertantly left it up when I went through the automatic car wash.
I was slightly annoyed when a phone call disturbed my early morning productive thinking about what order I would accomplish my tasks that day. It was my Sister on the other line, she was calling from Colorado to tell me that she had the Today Show on and some planes had just hit some buildings in New York City. I dismissed it as being some kind of freak and tragic accident and hung up the phone.
A few minutes later Laren was about to walk out the door to work and the phone rang again. It was Kallie again urging me to turn on the news and see what was going on. My optimistic self did not want to throw a wrench in my day but I obliged and turned the TV on. They were talking about planes, two of them, that hit the World Trade Center in New York and then one that hit the Pentagon in Washington DC, and one that we later learned crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
As I was taking all of this in and realizing that there was no way it all could have been coincidental I was saddened but determined. So I turned the TV off and walked my three children about 4 long blocks to the bus stop. Kayla would only be at school for 3 hours and then she would be home and it would be lunch and nap time.
I only had a predetermined amount of time to get stuff done. So after the bus came my younger two kids and I hurried home to take off on our errands. I remember being at the cannery and it was completely empty. There were workers but I was the only patron. Oh how that changed the following day and weeks after September 11, 2001. It was after that day that the cannery became so packed full of people trying to get their food storage in that you had to have an appointment something like 60 days in advance.
I remember going into the Toyota Dealership and everyone in the waiting room sat there with their eyes entranced by the TV. I got what I needed and ran the other small errands and headed home to greet the school bus. Thankfully I didn't have to actually can the stuff I bought at the Cannery, that would have been impossible with 2 toddlers. Our ward had a canner so I could just use that. And as luck would have it I was working with the Achievement Day Girls at Church and the activity on Thursday was going to be using the Drypack canner where each girl would then get to take home a can of oatmeal.
I will never forget watching the sky above for a week after that and seeing it void of airplanes that were typically a common site overhead. Anyway, so that is where I was on September 11, 2001. Where were you?
My heart goes out to all who lost friends, family or loved ones in this attack and for all of those who have family serving our Country because of the War on Terror.
I actually knew one person who was killed in the attack on the Pentagon. His name is Brady Howell. I worked with him at Arctic Circle in Rexburg, Idaho when I was attending Ricks College. Brady was just a Junior in High School at that time, I believe. He was only an acquaintance, but I do remember him being a hard worker and that he was one that would take his job seriously when some of the other guys were still horsing around in the kitchen.
We knew that Brady could reign in those other guys and get them on task so we could get an order out quick. As it so happens, though I did not know my husband at the time, it was Brady's Dad who was serving as Laren's Stake President in Sugar City where Laren spent most of his childhood years. My heart goes out to Brady's wife Liz and the entire Howell family.
6 comments:
I was actually suppose to board a plane that morning to go and see Doug (he had been gone already 2 weeks) I sat glued to the television set ALL day. It was so surreal. It did make my travel planes interesting and the airports were so eerie after that for a while.
That is sad about Brady's family. I can only imagine....
Jay called me and told me to turn on the TV because an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center. There is a "World Trace Center" building in downtown denver and I thought he meant that. I spent the rest of the day in our apartment in Denver holding my one year old who couldn't understand why mommy sat in front of the T.V. all day crying. He kept coming over and hugging me.
My dh called me from the car; he was on his way to work, and heard about it on the radio. I had just gotten back from taking the kids to school. He told me to turn on the TV, that there was something I had to see. I asked which channel, and he said, "It will be on every channel." That's when I knew it was something big. I turned it on and couldn't believe what I was seeing. We kept calling each other all day, me giving him updates from the TV, and him giving me updates from the internet. Neither of us got much done that day. And I couldn't wait to get my kids from school and gather them under my protective wing.
I remember the day well. It was my son Kyle's 5th birthday. We were just turning off Barney when we saw that the tower had been hit. When I arrived home after dropping my son off at preschool, my sister called to tell me about both towers collapsing.
Kyle didn't understand why we were so somber on his "special" day. After that year, we started celebrating half-birthdays for our family (1/2 cake while we sing happy half birthday) because his birthday will always have some sadness attached to it.
Oh Julie, that's right! His birthday is on September 11th, his due date! I remember that now! Oh, what a great idea though to celebrate his half birthday.
But you know out of all of that bad, so many good things have come out of it. We are a different, more unified country than we were before 9/11, for one thing.
Since I am here in Germany it was in the late afternoon and I was about to go visiting teaching but cancelled it. The military base went into threatcon Delta and it was scary being in a foreign country when all that was happening to MY country. I have relatives in NYC and a cousin was getting out of the subway when a cloud of dust hit and he got his wife and they decided that day to move out of NYC. My Aunt has greived much since it was her city this happened to. It is a day in infamy for sure!
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