September 11th

I was standing in the breakfast room of a hotel in San Diego. There was a strange subdued feeling in the room and people were huddled around the tv. I turned to watch the news report. I kept hearing, "I can't believe it". It took me a minute to fully comprehend what was going on. We were on our way home from Mark and Amber's wedding. Taylor, Dallin and I had gone with my parents we had stopped off in San Diego to visit Krisitn. Rick had flown home the night before. He had considered waiting till that morning. It's a good thing he didn't. We spent the rest of the day listening to the news on the car radio wandering around San Diego. Much of the town was shut down. The military people were flocking to the bases. Unbelief and shock settled over the city and I am sure the entire country. I called Rick he was sitting in the hall at UVU watching the news. I wished he was in San Diego. That was September 11th 8 years ago.

Yesterday Dallin came home from school rushing through the door. "Mom, Mom we watched a movie about the twin towers..."he yelled. I cut him off, "I would like to hear about it but I just can't right now." I was stressed out of my mind. I was standing in my room in my underwear trying to find some clothes to wear and making calls at the same time. I had to get dressed, find a babysitter for the little kids, something for Taylor to do, organize homework, clean out the car, start dinner and scare up some kind of after school snacks. And I had a little less than 15 minutes to do it. I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off handing out orders to anyone who would listen then ordering a little louder for those who weren't listening. In the back ground I kept hearing little snippets of things Dallin was telling the rest of the kids. Planes crashing, people jumping out of windows, a man with the wing of a plane going through him, terrorists. I could tell Dallin liked the movie. I made a mental note to myself to remember to talk to him about it.

The cub scouts showed up. As the first one jumped off is bike he ran up to Dallin and said, "Do you feel kind of funny". "You mean from the movie, " Dallin said eyes getting big." Another boy arrived hopped out of his car and ran over to me, "where were you", he asked. For some reason I just knew he was asking about September 11th. Where was I, I didn't even have to think. I was in San Diego I said, remembering. For the next two hours I listened as the boys discussed the attacks. It had impacted them greatly. We went to a football game. They watched the game for a few minutes then wandered over to the bleacher railings to take turns spitting over the side. They watched the cheerleaders, they wrestled around with each other, they spit some more, they cheered like crazy when we made a touchdown, and in between it all the conversation kept coming back to the movie they had watched. "I would give all my allowance if I could shoot some terrorists" one of them said. "Lets get a plane and make if fly by itself and crash into the tourists" Dallin piped in. "Terrorists, not tourists" they all yelled back at him. "Oh yeah right" he said a little sheepishly. "Did you see all the fire" one said. "They are stilling cleaning up" another added. The movie had hit them hard. I am glad they watched it, I am glad they felt something, I am glad they reminded me.