Everyone seems to be asking the question,
"Where were you on 9/11?"
Like many other Americans, I DO remember.
And I'd to share my story for a very special reason: For my son.
In 2001, my son was a junior in high school.
We lived in a small town here in Washington,
the kind of place where the high school kids hold
a Homecoming Parade on the main street every fall,
with football players (including my son) riding on fire engines
and cheerleaders riding in convertibles.
The marching band plays, the flags spin,
the entire school empties and walks down the streets
displaying their Panther Pride for the whole assembled town.
The Snohomish Serpentine is tradition and history and pride.
I never knew how deep my son's pride ran...
On the morning of September 11, 2001
my kids left for high school and I was cleaning house.
My husband called me from his workplace,
to tell me what had happened in New York.
I didn't believe him.
I thought he had misunderstood.
The World Trade Center could not be GONE.
Because we had just moved into a new house the week before,
we didn't have cable yet. No TV. No News.
I turned on the radio and listened to the accounts.
I had vivid pictures in my mind from what I heard.
A few hours later, I had to leave to go to work.
I had to drive fifteen miles to the winery,
where I was one of the staff for a corporate event.
Frankly, every one of us who had to work that night
were surprised that it hadn't been canceled.
It was a dinner for over 100 HR Managers for a large locally-based
computer company.
They were at the nearby headquarters/campus for a conference,
and had come from several other countries as well as the US.
We were told they had no where else to go for dinner,
so the event was not canceled.
The staff was quiet, hushed, wanting only to be home
with our families to absorb the news and comfort one another.
Many of my friends and co-workers had seen news reports
and images of the devastating events of the day.
I hadn't yet.
One hour into the dinner event, these 100 HR managers
STARTED A FOOD FIGHT.
They tossed bread and flicked vegetables across tables,
and laughed their heads off like children in a lunchroom.
Not one of those people assembled stood up
to say 'ENOUGH!'. NOT ONE.
The supervisor of our staff quietly gathered us,
and instructed us to begin removing all wine and utensils from the tables.
And we did.
The 'guests' got mad when we took the wine away.
Then our supervisor stood in front of them and calmly announced
that the event was over.
Their buses were out front and they needed to go now.
If I remember correctly, she used the words 'evacuate the facility'.
The crowd dispersed loudly but quickly, and left.
The dozen staff members and four kitchen staff stood together,
and cried. We hugged. And we said goodbye
to head home to our families.
We all knew that we'd back our supervisor
if anything was ever said about the way the event ended.
We were just glad it HAD.
I drove the fifteen miles home
in complete amazement and anger
that those 100 people had behaved so badly,
so callously, in the face of what had happened in the world that day.
As I drove around the corner and onto our street in our little town,
after midnight,
I looked at our house and saw the most amazing sight...
My son, seventeen years old,
had rummaged through my (many) bins in the attic,
and found all of my vintage American flags.
He hung one in EVERY window in our house,
and turned the lights on in every room.
The place glowed like a beacon
of Patriotism, Hope, Pride, and Reverence
for all those who had lost their lives that day.
For everyone who had lost hope that day.
For the innocence we all lost that day.
I had to stop my car in the street
because my eyes were so filled with tears.
I parked and ran inside,
to find my family huddled around the television.
Bob had hooked up the cable
and they were watching live news coverage
and taped film of the collapse of the towers.
It was the first time I had seen it,
and I fell to my knees on the floor.
The 'vivid images' my mind had conjured earlier that day
hadn't even come close to the devastation I was watching.
My son put his hand on my shoulder,
and we cried.
I was even MORE angry at those HR Managers at that point.
I will never understand their reaction that day.
A seventeen year old high school boy grasped the meaning,
the solemnity, the horror of it all.
And could not help but show his emotions in a way
that honored the victims.
A man was born that day.
He is a good man, a proud man,
and a man that his parents are very proud of.
I would guess that this day is an especially hard one for him this year...
not just because of the memory of a day ten years ago,
but because he has just lost someone, his everything, whom he loved,
when she walked away.
And today is, tragically, her birthday.
His emotion and pain sound as raw as they did back then.
I fly my flag outside my house today
in honor of the victims and the heroes of 9/11.
And I fly it for my son,
who is a hero in my eyes and my heart.
I pray this pain never revisits him again.
I pray the same for our country.
