September 11...It just will never be the same.

September 11, 2001.

In rememberance of all those that lost their lives that day.

The mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and friends and heroes.

You will not be forgotten. You are in our hearts. You will carry on.


September 11, 2001--it seemed like just an ordinary day. Shawn was home from work that day as it was his day off. I remember him getting out of bed and walking out to the living room, and then hearing him run back in and yelled "Someone just blew up the World Trade Center!!!"

It didn't sink in at first, but hearing the emotion in his voice, I instinctively jumped out of bed and ran out to the TV with him. I really didn't "get" what the WTC was all about. I never paid attention much in school when we learned about it. I barely watched the news before 9-11. The WTC was just a word I heard in passing, but had no clue what it really was. But as the images were shown on tv all I could see was the countless lives that were lost. The horror on the peoples faces that were there. And I sat down and cried. I think we sat for 3 hours just staring at the tv. The kids were homeschooled - and we did not even do school that morning. All that day and all through the night I watched the images. I watched the firefighters and police officers and paramedics do a job that no person should ever have to do. I watched the grief, the sorrow, the bewilderment on faces that were there when it happened. And I just thought to myself, "Why??"

We did not see the actual crashing of the planes into the building, but we saw them collapse. We saw right after the plane crashed in Pennsylvania. We saw the replays over and over. We went around in a daze that day. Everything seemed so insignificant in comparison. I remember going to the store and being in such a fuge that I did not hear the cashier talking to me. All I could do was look at the man bagging my groceries and say "did you hear?"

2996 human beings confirmed/reported dead and missing.

2996.

That is a lot of human life to be lost.

Gender, sexuality, religion, nationality it does not matter.

2996 is a lot of human lift to be lost.

Until that day I was naive. I truly had NO IDEA that there were people out there that hated our country that much, hated everything that our citizens are and how we live....hated us so much that they would just kill like that. Until that day, words like Bin Laden, Iraq, Iran, Jihad...none of those were in my vocabulary. Well, they are now.

Today, the Dalai Lama is visiting Idaho. He is talking of world peace and a hope for healing. I know that I am going to listen to what he has to say. I only wish that everyone else could and would listen to the message as well.