Remembering...

It's the 11 year anniversary of the largest terrorist attack on US soil.  Who could ever forget 9/11/2001? I certainly won't.  I was living in Denver at the time, my dad (Papa) called and screamed into the phone "there are planes flying into buildings!!!" I freaked out...I thought he meant in Seattle, where my family lives.  Soon enough, the tv was on and I was glued to the coverage for the next several hours, days, weeks...just like every other American.

As unforgettably horrible as that day was, remembering the one year anniversary in 2002 is almost just as hard.  I was staying at my parent's house, taking care of Papa while Mom was back in school (I come from a family of teachers) and though I lived across the state, I put my life on hold to spend time with my incredibly sick father.  We spent days watching tv on his bed, talking, sitting on the porch swing watching the birds at the feeders, listening to the numerous wind chimes Papa had hung around the deck.  It was a time I will never forget.

On September 11, 2002 Papa was nearing the end but he still loved watching his tv.  He normally had the bedroom tv tuned into The Food Network, while the kitchen tv was turned to a local station so when he made his way out for a snack or to refill his water cup, he was treated to local news, soap operas or in the afternoon-Judge Judy.  This was his routine, and if you've ever met me, or my father, you know that messing with our routine makes us about as happy as a cat in water.

This day though, The Food Network wasn't airing the regularly scheduled programming.  It was showing a solid color screen with a sentence or two recognizing the events of the previous year.  I clearly remember Papa's reaction: I know it's important to remember, but come on already, lets get on with it.  Where are my shows?

Finally he changed the channel and we joined the rest of the world as Peter Jennings, or Tom Brokaw took us minute by minute through the events that were still so fresh in our minds, and we listened as they spoke comforting words to a hurting nation still looking for answers to the unimaginable.

Every few minutes the tv would flip over to the still screen of The Food Network and quickly back again.  "By noon" Papa thought, "Surely, by noon they'll have the normal shows back on the air." We spent the day that way...sitting next to each other on the bed, watching the buildings fall all over again, listening to each victim's name read, still trying to wrap our minds around what our eyes had seen and our brains had been replaying for the past year.  Wondering when The Food Network would feel it had appropriately recognized the anguish and terror our country had been through and would put Rachel Rae on so we could learn how to make yet another meal in 30 minutes.

Certainly 9-11-2001 is a date that will never be forgotten.  But so is 9-11-2002.  For me anyway.

Today, I remember the 11th anniversary of 9/11.  But part of me uses it as a marker of time...if this is the 11th anniversary of 9/11, then we're approaching the 10 year anniversary of Papa's death.  Just a few weeks after Papa and I mourned the events of the previous year, I lost my Papa.

As a nation we come together today and mourn the lives that were ended that day, we cherish the heroes who ran in when everyone else ran out.  And we admire the brave who took it upon themselves to prevent even further destruction.  We acknowledge that in some way, big or small, it changed all of us, it changed our country, and the world as we knew it.

Personally, I begin the hardest few weeks of the year--the weeks leading up to the anniversary of Papa's death.  And though he slipped quietly away in his own peaceful bedroom, and the anniversary of his passing doesn't garner world wide attention or prevent networks from showing their normal programs, the loss of my father stopped my world as I knew it and has forever changed the course of my life.

Praying God's comfort and peace on this hurting nation and world.
He is the ultimate healer and comforter.