I remember

It doesn't seem so that nine years have passed since that day on September 11.

I was headed to an auction to meet a friend and do some shopping for some more furniture to paint when I heard the news on the radio.  I was stunned, but only slightly compared to when I heard that a second plane had crashed into the second tower. 
  Returning home, I watched in horror as the scenes unfolded from Ground Zero and uncontrollable tears were mingled with anger as I saw the towers come down.  These incredible buildings that reached to the sky were gone.  In the days that followed, I wondered what it all could mean for the those people in the midst of the chaos, for the United States of America, for myself.  My husband was in the navy reserves and fear gripped my heart at the thought of what war might do.  Our lives were happy; we had lost a baby in pregnancy, but we were praying for another and I didn't like the thought of having to risk the man I loved in a land I didn't know anything about.


My farmer did have to go to war, but not until 3 years and a baby girl later. I knew he had to go, but we missed him terribly.

We'd just bought our 30 acre farm 3 months before he left, so I tried to keep busy painting in the house to get things nice for when my soldier came home.

We'd celebrated our girl's second birthday and then Christmas without him; I thought of those who had lost their spouses/parents at Ground Zero and prayed I'd not have to spend another Christmas without him.

This man that I'd seen carrying his lunchbox to work everyday, a shovel to clean the barn out in the evening, who'd tenderly held our baby girl and worn his "It's a girl" pin on his shirt everyday for the first week after she was born...to the farm where he worked, was now toting a gun praying for protection everywhere he went.




But he did come home.

Our daughter and the 2 we have had since do not have the memory of what their courageous father did some years back.

That stage of life for myself, however, will always cause me to say a special prayer for those who lost people that they loved on September 11, 2001...

because I remember.