9-11-01

Today five years ago 2,996 people died.

I know I'm a little late on this, since in an hour it will be September 12, but this is the first free moment I've had to sit down and write. I've been planning all day so that the boys would be in bed early since C has another day of preschool tomorrow (he told me earlier today that he didn't want to go; he wanted to stay home. We'll see what he thinks tomorrow.)

Five years ago today I was a freshman in college, and R was off at basic training. I was off from school that day, and was working my cashier job. I first heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center tower from a customer who I was ringing up. I heard bits and pieces of information throughout the day; we didn't have a tv at the store, just a radio, but it was in the back and I had to stay near the registers. The full impact of what had happened didn't hit me until I got home later in the day.

My dad had the tv on a news station when I got home, and that was the first I saw of the planes hitting and the towers falling. It was horrific. I began to get scared; when R had entered the National Guard, I didn't worry too much about it, but now I wondered if he would be shipped off to war. The world had changed in a day, and everything felt upside down.

Luckily R finished off basic and got to come home. We moved in together...and the rest is history. But R did serve our country in Iraq for a year; he returned home this past January. I worried about him everyday, me at home with our two small children, but he was there for a reason: freedom isn't free. We have to fight for it. Our country has to fight against those who killed the 2,996 people that day.

We must never forget those people.