18 Years Ago, or so... (tl;dr reminiscing of 9/11)
21On September 7th, 2001, Spouse and I took the day off and drove to Salina, KS for a combination family reunion/memorial for my Great Aunt Della. Aunt Della was a larger than life character in my life. She had traveled the world. She invested well at a younger age which she was lucky in her selections in that it paid for her travels later. She was known for being a sharp judge of character and did not suffer fools. She was outspoken about many things. I distinctly remember her telling me when I was very young that if I wanted to learn, keep quiet and listen to what people were saying. I took that to mean that I should follow her and listen to everything she said. I heard a lot of her opinions about things both family and the state of the world.
Anyway, this was the first family reunion I had been to as an adult. I was, and still am, distant from my dad and had very little to do with his family. Two days prior, my cousin called and asked if I was coming. I told Cuz that I hadn’t heard about it. He nearly begged me to come, no one had seen or heard much of me in nearly 18 years. After verifying that dad wouldn’t be there, I said I would go.
All of my cousins were there from all over the world. We spent nearly every waking minute talking about the directions our lives had taken and what passions drove us forward. Plans and ideas and remember that time…
We visited the cemetery and the old homestead and the high school. Football game Friday night saw our family as guests of the school. Old times just like Springsteen’s song.
Monday morning saw people to the KC airport or just heading out on I-70. Lots of hugs and allergies causing sniffles. Promises of getting together more often.
Tuesday morning saw me back at work. A day that started like any other.
Then the unthinkable began to happen. Like many others, I was overcome by events.
Days later I reflected on the weekend before and I was so grateful that I had been able to reconnect with family.
I got together with dad’s side of the family again in 2006 when Cuz got married. And again in 2016 when we celebrated Aunt and Unc’s 50 year anniversary. I keep in touch with most everyone, some more frequently than others.
On this anniversary of that awful day, I am thinking about family and I think I will go give them a call.
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There are a few times in history when people say “do you remember what you were doing when…” This is one where everyone alive that day has a story that will forever be a part of them. My dad said “this is your generation’s Pearl Harbor.” He’s not far off. It both united and divided a nation. Hopefully at least for today we can simply remember, and morn, those lost and leave the rest behind. Thanks for sharing.
@ybmuG For my parents’ generation it was the JFK assassination. When I was younger, it was the Challenger Explosion.
@mml666 @ybmuG omg, I stood home from school to watch that. I wanted to be an astronaut until I saw the explosion!
@tinamarie1974 @ybmuG A lot of people watched it at a school wide assembly. We didn’t so anything in my school and I only heard about it when a friend walked into the lunchroom and said, “Did you hear that the space shuttle exploded?”
One of the teachers from my school applied to be on the shuttle, so we joked, “Too bad Mrs. X wasn’t on it.”
@mml666 @ybmuG yeah, I attended a very small catholic school. They never seemed to see the benefit of cutting the daily schedule for special events. I guess in this case it was a good thing.
But knowing that I BEGGED my mom to let me stay home so I COULD watch it. Oh well!
@mml666 @tinamarie1974 yeah, the Challenger was another. I was walking back to my dorm when I heard.
one of those moments when a friend calls you and says “turn your TV on” and you ask which channel and he says “doesn’t matter.”
I’d lost my husband some weeks before (massive heart attack), and then a friend. The friend was on vacation, went around a blind corner on his motorcycle at a high speed, and a semi hit him. The blessing was that it was instant, and no one else was hurt.
I was in bed, vaguely watching the television, working on a section of a proposal that was intended for a company whose technical section and certain executives were housed in one of the towers. I looked up and tried to figure out how a movie had ended up on the channel, and suddenly realized that it was a live report. The wrench to my heart only deepened when I realized that there was a second aircraft headed towards the second tower, and heard the grief and horror in the announcer’s voice as he described what was happening.
The Pentagon was hit, and then there were the reports of the last flight, headed into the ground with all on board dying. I’ve watched some documentaries in the past few days, and it’s astonishing how much I remember, and how swiftly I returned to that time.
On the morning of the 11th (yesterday), I got a text from a friend, letting me know that someone I’d known since 1995 had passed in hospice, peacefully, in his sleep. It was expected; he’d been in hospice since May 2018, with lung cancer (and probably complications). Tough guy. Usually when you go into hospice, it’s with the expectation that you have only a short time. This was more than a year and a half.
I’m really numb with grief. The memories of that time (which are nearly unavoidable) all mixed in with the loss of my friend, and the memories of those who were gone all that long time ago… It just hurts.
This is from a few years ago, but I just came upon it this evening. It’s long, but very much worth reading to the end.
The Falling Man
An unforgettable story.