911

I will always remember this day 6 years ago. I had stayed late Monday night to prep for Convention because Rick was going to California and I didn't need to rush home. The next day I rushed into the office because our student employee, Jenn, was scheduled to come in at 8:15. I flipped on the radio and immediately could hear a different tone in a usually upbeat morning program. Jenn came in and I said, we need to go find a TV. There has been a tragedy.

We walked from Kretzmann to the Union under a clear blue sky trying to make sense of the pieces we knew so far. At the Union, no one seemed to know what we knew. We walked to Alumni Hall where Jenn was an RA and could pull out a big screen TV. We turned it on and tried to begin to pull together the pieces of what was happening.

Freshmen, who had only been on campus a couple weeks, were coming down the stairs to be confronted with a group gathered in front of the TV and unspeakable images on screen. We watched the towers crumble, we heard about the pentagon, we prayed for the people on that plane in PA, our blood ran cold.

The rest of the day was foggy. I was in contact with my family, talked to Rick who saw this unfold from a hotel room and ultimately ended up having to drive across country in a rental car with his colleagues to get home, I filled up my tank, I wondered aimlessly around the grocery stocking up on this and that not knowing what the next day, hour, minute would bring.

Then I wondered how everything would get sorted out. I anticipated significant life change. Though life in America has certainly changed, the day-to-day feels the same. We still mourn the casualties of that day and casualties that have have occured since. It is hard not to remember.