Almost exactly eight years ago, I was leaning against a shed at Sand Creek Farms in Shelbyville at sunset during the Walking Horse Celebration when my momma called. She told me my grandmother was dying of pancreatic cancer. I remember where I was because it was some of the worst news I ever received & I was helpless to it.
Pearl Harbor attack.
JFK assassination.
Challenger explosion.
September 11, 2001.
These are events in America’s history that are so firmly ingrained & so important in our memories we know exactly what we were doing & where we were. We share these memories; we are not alone in our anger & grief. I wasn’t alive for Pearl Harbor or the assasination, so they are just images & bits of what I absorbed in history classes over the years. The photos are grainy & details are fuzzy in my mind, as they were just dates to memorize for the impending exam. I was five for the Challenger tragedy. I was in the floor playing & the tv was on. I remember sharp intakes of breath & cries of “What happened???” around me. I was wearing my magenta colored plastic charm necklace.
September 11th was another scenerio entirely. I was grown, working, a voting American citizen. Details are crystal clear. It was a normal morning at the Co-op…until it wasn’t. A man came in on his regular errand & told us a plane had crashed into the world trade center. The thought of terrorists never crossed our minds. That wasn’t even a word we used back then. Several of us gathered in the tire shop waiting area to watch a minute of news coverage. We were turning away when the second plane hit. I remember my knees buckling & my stomach plummeting. This was no accidental plane crash. More coworkers swarmed in & we huddled together. It was beyond frightening. We were rudderless in uncharted waters. We’d never seen war on our turf. And now it was possible that we would–that we were. In our biggest city, the epicenter of all economic activity in our nation. Our main port, our bustling, welcoming, harbor. Now what? Traffic built on the highway as people left their jobs mid morning to rush home & be with their families. News of the crash at the Pentagon came & we stood still. It became extremely quiet locally that day. A curfew was announced, but I don’t know anybody who wanted to go out for dinner or anything else.
We stood still that night as our President addressed the nation.
The skies were silent & still as planes were grounded for days on end.
And then, finally, there was action.
Flags appeared everywhere. We became a nation united. We were hurt, but we were also very, very, MAD.
So this morning, a morning like any other, as you drink your coffee & read your paper & listen to an uplifting sermon at church, remember that morning fifteen years ago, if you can. Remember how we drank our coffee & read our paper & headed off to another boring day at work.
And how it all changed in the blink of an eye. How we watched humanity jump from windows a hundred stories up. How firemen & police officers & paramedics rushed into sure death to save one soul.
And how we wept. Oh, how we wept.
America, America.
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern impassion’d stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America! God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev’ry gain divine!
O Beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
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