Remembering

September 11, 2001. I remember very clearly what I was doing when the first plane struck the World Trade Center.

My mother had suffered a major stroke just one month before on August 10, 2001. She lay in a hospital over 5 hrs from my home. For weeks she had been in a coma, it was awful. There would be signs of movement, signs of activity...then nothing. Decisions were having to be made about her care, mostly by my father but my sister was there to guide him and help to carry the burden. Awful.

I am the youngest of 5 siblings, as soon as the call went out each one of us made our way home from just a couple of hours away - all the way to the New England States. We each stayed as long as we could. I left from work and literally grabbed only my toothbrush and contact supplies, nothing else. My mind was elsewhere...my heart and mind were with my momma. My husband came over a couple of days later (thankfully with clothes for me!).

Each Friday I would get off work at 1 p.m. and drive the 5 hrs to be with my dad and momma, giving other family members a little break....on Sunday I would stay until the very last minute to get home just before dark.

My brother and I were also in the final stages (for the 3rd time) preparing for a kidney transplant, we knew as soon as he was strong enough and his lab work was at a certain level we would be called to Portland (where he lives, but 5 hrs from where I live) ASAP before any changes happened to call it off yet again. He was so weak and this was basically his last chance at survival, there was no way our mother would have wanted us to not go through with the transplant due to her condition. My brother and I talked about this on and off for weeks, we talked with daddy and our sister and everyone decided the transplant HAD to go through, no matter what.

With all that was going on my spirit was pretty much empty during that month...there was not much emotionally, physically or spiritually left of me. Too much was happening, too many things going on.

During the week when I was home and not at my parents, my sister and I would talk each morning. I had called her that horrible morning, we were both getting ready for work. The morning news was on at our house, she had not turned her TV on that morning. I was shocked and told her what I had just seen, we couldn't believe it! How can this be happening? Our personal world had already been rocked and now the United States was under attack, how can this be happening??

How can anyone hate so? How can this be?

I remember where I was, on the phone with my sister: weary and worn out and yet that is when I was forced to begin learning a whole new level of grief.