September 11, 2001
1:30 a.m. - I head to the airport to pick up our good friends, Steve and Becky, arriving from England for a 2 week visit. This is Becky's first time to America and we are so excited to see them. We collapse in bed at around 3 a.m.
9:00 a.m. - We are all waking up and the kids are so happy to see Becky and Steve for the first time in several years. I am in the kitchen cooking breakfast while Haylie and Matthew are playing on the floor nearby with Becky and Steve. They are all laughing having a great time.
9:30 a.m. - The phone rings and it's my friend Kris. She asks me if I am watching The Today Show. I told her that we did not have the t.v. on and she insisted that I turn it on immediately, which I did.
That's the first time we saw it. The two towers with smoke pouring out of them. As we watched with confusion, I will never forget how I felt when I saw that first tower collapse. I knew this wasn't really happening. It couldn't be. Surreal doesn't even describe it.
We had planned a full day with our friends - we were going to spend the day downtown seeing Temple Square, The Conference Center, eat lunch at the Lion House Pantry. It was all so new to Becky and we wanted show her wonderful Salt Lake City. With heavy hearts, still feeling very confused, we headed downtown. The day was very strange. Passing people on the street, you could see the grief and confusion in their faces. As the day went on and as people realized how truly huge and devastating this was, the stores and shops began to close, hanging signs in their windows saying "Due to the tragic events of the day, we are closed".
We went into the Visitor's Center and silently sat by the Christus statue. After a few minutes two sister missionaries approached us and offered us some tickets to a Tabernacle Choir concert that night in the Tabernacle, which had been planned for some time. They had decided to still go on with the concert despite of what was going on. All I can say is that concert was truly inspired to be held on September 11th.
We arrived at the concert that night, and obviously the program had changed a bit. President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke. He spoke words of comfort, love and hope. As we stood at the end and, with hands on our hearts, sang as a congregation, My Country, 'Tis of Thee, I wept. I wept in a way I have never done before.
It was a difficult time for our friends to be here. Their plans completely changed. There were no cars available for them to rent and travel around as they had planned. Becky wanted to go back home to England - surely she would feel safer in her own home, but that was not a possibility. The skies were silent for nearly two weeks.
Adam didn't join our family for almost 3 years after that tragic day, so seeing all the flags at the Healing Field this morning was just a play date for him. I wonder how he felt, though, as surely he watched from above as the events of September 11th were taking place, about coming into such a world.
But I believe he knew that with the Gospel of Jesus Christ that he would be okay. There he would find safety and shelter from this cruel and unpredictable world.
7 comments:
Thanks for this post, Maryanne. This is another thing I missed, being in China. I can't participate in the usual patriotic events, and it's hard. I'm doing my best to remember and keep a prayer in my heart regardless.
Thats awesome, I remember when it happened, I was in school, second period, and we had just heard that one plane had hit the towers so my english teacher turned the TV on and we saw the second plane hit the towers. It was even scarier when the pentagon was hit, because we were only an hour or less away from that! I'll never forget that day.
I'm so sad I didn't get to meet your daughter! Andrew and I were browsing through the bookstore waiting for our next class to start! We have New Testament together! It's amazing! Is she going to the game? Hopefully I'll meet up with someone from your family soon!
It was a day I'll never forget. I'm sure your British friends won't either. How comforting to have been able to be there for the choir concert. Thanks for the post and sharing how your memories of that day went. Very sad.
That night seven years ago was indeed surreal. What was happening to my country? What do we do? At the dinner table that night Tom and I weeped openly in front of our children, we couldn't believe what happened that day. It was awful, a day I will never forget.
What a great post! It brings back all the memories of that terrible day--Ben was just a baby then. I remember getting home from running that morning and turning on the Today Show like I did every morning back then, so I saw most of it happening in real time. It was great to see our country come together the way we did--how quickly some forget that we are first Americans. I love the field of flags--I usually take the boys every year, but we are out of town this year. Anyway, thanks for sharing. What a sad day.
I can't believe it was 7 years ago; time goes by so fast. I had left the MTC and reached Belgium to begin my mission about 2 weeks prior to 9/11. It was definitely weird being in a different country when it happened, and we all quickly realized the gravity of the situation by what was going on around us. We weren't even allowed out of our apartments for a couple of days until things blew over. Tracting was hard for awhile because all anybody would talk to us about was the tragedy of what happened, so we'd use that as a catalyst to start talking about the gospel. Our mission president had to call a special meeting for us to let us know everything would be alright (I think a lot of the other missionaries, like me, were hoping that the world wasn't coming to and end and hoping that we wouldn't get stuck in Belgium if it was!) I guess it's one of those events that you'll always rememeber where you were at the time and how you felt.
I met your daughter today!
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