Frick Family Portrait 2010

Photo by Sheila Bottoms www.sheilabottoms.com

Remembering 9/11…
I was sitting in my newly built house, pregnant (and hormonal I might add) with my daughter blissfully unaware and watching Disney Channel (which doesn’t interrupt programming with bad news thankfully) when my sister-in-law called me in a panic. I’m an Air Force brat, and as such, I’m pretty composed, realizing that the likelihood of tanks in the street is something we are lucky enough not to face in our country. However, when the second plane hit, and I watched the towers fall my heart stopped. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing. And, when the Pentagon was hit, it really brought it home to me. That’s the central location of our nation’s defenses. I used to run those halls when I’d go to work with my father as a child. I knew that building. And, to think it could be hit as well…I’m forever grateful to the brave people on the fourth plane who were able to keep it from it’s final destination, and who so bravely gave their lives knowing full well what was happening by that point – which, in my mind is unimaginable. I’m tearing now just thinking about it.
Of course the phone lines were a mess. My husband was out of town on business – not ideal (remember – pregnant and hormonal from earlier). He was in Detroit – which, apparently has a large number of people who were literally cheering in the streets. That made no sense to me – how could people in our own country be cheering for such a horrific act?
Drew’s (my husband) company immediately made arrangements to get them out of Detroit to a suburb, but it was still so frightening. And, it was several days (as we all recall) before he could travel and get home to us.
Again, I am grateful to have grown up military – although I was shocked and devastated that these acts occurred on our soil, I knew that our gov’t would take immediate action to protect us, and to keep us from further harm. Perhaps I’m still a bit naively optimistic, but I prefer to believe that there is much more good in this world than evil. And, I prefer to think that the desperate acts of madmen only strengthened our resolve to make our country a safe haven for those who believe in the rights of all people. Yes, they took our innocence, but no they cannot break our will or our unity. Instead, what they did was to bring our nation together again and to remind us of our core values. I just hope we never forget.