September 11, 2011
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Where were you when 9/11 changed the world?
I was in my van on the way to school to teach my first class of the day. I was teaching Science at a private Catholic highschool about 5 miles from here. As usual I had the radio on for the ride when a newscaster broke into the music to announce that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. I can still see the shock and disbelief on the faces of the other drivers on the road around me. It was like a strangely choreographed dance. Everyone, including myself, stopped at the same time under the traffic light regardless of the color of the signal. We all sat there in disbelief at what we had heard. Then, as if on cue, every simply started going again without any misshap.
I arrived at school and they had already heard what had happened. I called my husband who was tearing down a barn out in the hills above our farm. I begged him to meet me at church with the other children after I got off school so that we could pray together for whatever this whole thing meant.
I spent the day at school not teaching classes but holding sorrowing and shocked teens as they sobbed out their fear and disbelief at what they heard. We watched the news coverage over and over while they waited for parents to come get them and take them home. There would be no classes that day. These kids needed to be with family.
When I finally was able to leave school I met my husband, my parents and my other children at our church and we prayed. We prayed for the unknown, for the known and for the possible. We all went to bed that night wondering what this could all mean for our family, our country and our world.
Today on this 10th anniversary our prayer is for forgiveness. Forgiveness for those who perpetrated those acts; "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do!" We pray for forgiveness for those who hate and we pray for those in ignorance.
Comments (2)
I was in Edinburgh, a graduate student. A fellow student approached me as I was walking back from a class and said, "Aren't you American? I'm so sorry for what's happened".
I was on my way to the cider mill with a car full of apples when I heard it on the radio. When I got there I told the family who owns the mill. They're old order Mennonite and they don't have radios. They do have a phone in the mill, so they phoned a friend who had a radio and he confirmed what I had told them. After the apples were made into cider I stopped at a bakery on the way home to get a snack. All the customers were standing there talking to each other. I think we were in shock that such a thing could happen.
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