I woke up and threw on a black tee and a pair of gray capris; balled my hair up in a messy bun and started the coffee pot. My husband (who was still my fiancee at the time) and I watched the morning news before he left for work. After he left, I muted the television during the Early show on CBS, lit a cigarette, turned on the stereo, and started my housecleaning routine.

At 9:15 am on the morning of September 11th, 2001 I was sweeping my kitchen when my father called and said that planes were crashing into buildings in New York and planes were being hijacked all over the eastern United States, and the twin towers were the first hit.

I ran to the muted television in the living room, and my heart dropped. So did the phone. Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic" was playing on the radio, and all I could think about was hell had broken loose, and all those stories I had heard in church as a child were coming true. Hell had come to America. Fire and smoke and papers and falling bodies of people who didn't want to burn to death. Help those souls, it was like Armageddon...and I was alone. I sat 6 inches from the television paralyzed in fear, flipping from channel to channel to hear more news, and then...

The Pentagon was hit, more planes were supposedly in the air, and now it was considered an assault on the government, and all I could think about was my partner working in a Federal building in the biggest city in the state, and I had no idea where to call him. Small beans hitting Kentucky, I know, but at that moment I had absolutely no idea how far this was going to go...and we had Fort Knox a short distance away. I mean, if they hit the PENTAGON, the hub and heart of the US Military right under their noses, they could hit anywhere. I was twenty one, alone, in my first apartment, hours away from my family, in a town where I knew literally no one. And then the buildings came down. In an hour, my world was turned upside down, and the America I had grown up in, and learned to love, died with those pillars of fire and smoke. I was no longer safe. Nothing would ever again be the same.

I cried for those poor people. I cried for their children. I cried for my nation. I cried until I couldn't, and I sat on my couch like a zombied widow at a funeral.

I didn't know what to do, but I did the one thing I could: I called my family and told them I loved them. I'm sure many of you did the same. I barely slept for months.




It is in times of crisis that Americans once again remember what it is to live up to the title. We bonded together, and reunified as a nation, once again. And we carried on. We always carry on. We are the United States of America.

Don't forget the victims. 2996 families were forever altered, and every Average Joe and Jane citizen in this nation mourned and continues to mourn with them.

Don't forget that surge of pride you felt afterwards, that you were so fortunate to live in a free society that so many generations had fought and died to preserve.

Don't forget that day, and how we all showed compassion and love for our fellow neighbors, because that is more of an example of America's strength than any show of military force could ever produce.

I haven't forgotten a single detail of the day my world changed. I am quite sure that many of you haven't. Where were you on September 11th, 2001?
~Kelli

Labels: 9/11, memories, patriotism, pentagon, september 11th, twin towers, United States, writing