Ten Years Later - We Remember

I can't believe it's been 10 years since that Tuesday morning. I was asleep at my mom's house in Northern California when my dad called me. He told me we were under attack. Always the over-reactor, I said, "yeah right!" and rolled back over to go back to sleep. But something nagged at my mind and I decided to get up and turn on the television.

The news reported of a plane that had crashed into the World Trade Center. They suspected a horrible accident. I had Kassidy, then 22 months old, sitting in my lap, when a few minutes later I watched in horror as a second plane struck the other tower. I knew then that my father was right. We were indeed under attack. I called Frank who was in Southern California on a job and woke him up to the awful news. We sat holding our phones to our ears, not speaking, just watching together as the events of the day unfolded.

I cried. For my daughter, whose entire future just changed, for the baby boy in my belly, 2 months away from being born, who would never know a world without war. For the families... the thousands of families who were getting the devastating news that their husbands, their wives, their mothers, their fathers, their family, would never be coming home again all because they went to work, or got on a plane one Tuesday morning.

And now, one decade later, we remember. Our children will understand that 9/11 was not a day that terrorists overtook our country, but it was a day that we, as Americans, pulled together. It didn't matter what religion we were, what political party we claimed, or what race we were. That day we were Americans. We were one. We will never forget.