9/11

I'm holding my family a little closer and thinking of all those who lost family 8 years ago today.

It's a day we'll never forget. On that fateful day we were living in a hotel in NY awaiting the completion of our house build. We were about 30 miles from NYC. G and I happened to be in the hotel that morning and for some strange reason turned on the TV which we never did at that time of day. We were watching the footage and trying to figure out what was going on and saw the second plane hit live. I knew several people in NYC that day and not being able to make contact was agonizing.

The days that followed provided endless reminders of the horror of that day. We had no way of communicating via phone/email. The hotel filled with bewildered people denied access to their NYC apartments. The constant news and updates on TV. The silent sky.The fear.The endless stream of emergency and construction site vehicles heading towards NYC. Road blocks everywhere. The shocked and despairing look on every face around us. The need for everyone to talk to anyone about it just to work through it.

The sight of so many stars and stripes in the weeks that followed was so utterly moving. To feel and see so many people pulling together offering help in all ways possible. The combined hope that maybe a pocket of survivors would be found even though it slowly dwindled to the hope of even a single survivor. A miracle.

We paid our respects at Ground Zero while it was still burning (and several times since). The silence was erie. The magnitude more real when there in person and seeing the aftermath.

We were lucky that we didn't lose any loved ones but like so many others I lost a little piece of myself that day and will never forget.