9/11

I can not believe it has been 6 years since this horrid day will forever be remembered in United States history.

I, like everyone else, remember what I was doing when I first heard the news. I was at my job at FedEx. I had only been there one month at the time. I remember our boss coming to tell us what was going on. Details were very sketchy at first. I was scared to death being at an airport working, not knowing yet what was truly going on. We didn't know how many attacks had happened or how many were to come. We didn't have access to TV, only second hand information we were getting from our bosses when they heard something. It was a long, scary, day.

I remember after I got home and started watching what was going on I wanted to hug my daughter and my husband tight. The realization that something like that could happen here truly sank in.

The people that were killed that day went to work, or got on a flight like millions of people do every day believing they would come home. They didn't.

I believe that up until that point I naively thought I was safe in the United States. We didn't live in a country where things like that happened. That was always someone else's problem.

Living very near the airport, I am used to seeing and hearing airplanes go over my house with regularity. When they stopped all airplanes from flying that next day it was very disturbing to look up at the sky and see nothing, to hear nothing.

As the story unfolded over the next days and weeks I was stunned and mortified. With each detail I kept asking how and why this happened.

It was senseless and tragic and a day I will never forget. I didn't know anyone killed on that day but it has affected me in a different way. Every time I unwillingly get on an airplane, or someone that I love does, I wonder if I will see them again. Every time an airplane goes over my house just a little too low, I wonder. At work, if I see a package that just doesn't seem right, I wonder.

The United States has changed dramatically since 9/11. Some good, some bad. I still would never want to live anywhere else in the world. The way this country came together after that day to help and to heal each other was amazing to see. Strangers helping strangers, just because. We, as a nation, were attacked, and we, as a nation, were going to persevere.

I pray that nothing like this will ever happen again. I know, unfortunately that this is probably not true. Even one more life lost in such tragedy will be too many.