9/11 A DAY TO REMEMBER

It is hard to believe it has been 9 years. Today I tried to get mark to share his experience that day, and he really does not want to share. It is the hardest thing for him to talk about. In the years that have passed, we don't talk about it much unless something happens to trigger a memory. We left for the mission field in 2004, and mark has managed not to be in the country on 9/11 since then, so it has been 6 years. So he misses all of the media and talk at this time of year. We had been praying about full time missions before 9/11/01, and after that day, God confirmed what God had for our family.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. It was a beautiful morning in Plymouth. The kids were young. Jessie was in Kindergarten, we were homeschooling. We had begun our day of school work, prayed together and had been singing some songs. Mard had left the day before for a few days in NYC. I was still in graduate school and was due to start my pediatric clinicals the next day.

The phone rang and it was Mark. He said they were meeting and they thought a plane hit one of the towers and asked if I could turn on the news and see what was happening. He first said, they thought it was a small plane, then suddenly I could hear people yelling in the background and Mark started yelling hysterically. He was screaming, 'Oh My God, it is another one, it is a jet, they hit the other tower, ITS TERRORISTS, it has to be.' He kept saying it over and over and over. I did not understand what was going on, only that he sounded so unreasonable. he said he needed to go and would call back.

I called the school at the church and Karen answered the phone, and I started telling her what was happening. I sent the kids outside, because it was a beautiful day. mark called a few times and I told him what I knew and it was just like chaos. Then like Mark would always do, he said "We are going to go downstairs and see what we can do to help". I had pulled up IM on my computer because we were having a hard time getting phone service at times and we agreed to just check in every 10 minutes if possible.

Then I was talking to my friend Judy on the phone when we learned that the Pentagon had been hit. I just remembered thinking, what am I supposed to do??? We had a beautiful house with a big living room, and i had and office right off the living room. I remember the moment of standing in the doorway between the rooms. I could see my computer and my IM connections, and I could see the TV, and then the first tower collapsed. As te tower collapsed, the IM connections I had with Mark just diappeared. At first it looked to me like the top of the building fell off, because on TV you could not see the bottom due to the smoke and ash. I remember calling the school/church again and being a little irrational and telling Karen about the building falling and that Mark was on the street. I knew that the school was praying for us and everyone in New York or around. My phone rang and rang, people dropped by, A friend came over because her husband was tuck on the West Coast and would eventually end up driving home several days later.

Hours passed. Mark's brother called, he did not even say hi when I answered the phone. All that he said was "Where is Mark?", and I answered, he is where you think. He asked if he was OK, and I had to tell him I did not know. People called and came by and time passed. I had just begun to consider that I needed to call Mark's mother, because I did not know if he was OK. When suddenly he called. He was very brief, said he was OK, there was no power, and that they had been on the street when the tower fell and they ran for their lives. They were trying to figure out if they were going to camp out in the office building or what.

He called again later and said they were going to try to find some food. He tells me they went down to the street and walked to time square and it looked like a grey ghost town. We realized that we did not know how or when they would get home. At about midnight he called and said he was coming home and could not explain and did not know when he would be home.

He got in at about 5am, he had grey dust all over him, he cried for hours, but did not talk. Our church/school asked him to share about the experience and it was one of those times when he just did not share much, he just could not talk. He was so quiet and did not talk much for a few days. He began to share some of the details. To this day, I know that the thing that haunts him the most is the sight of people jumping from the building and the sound and sight of the impact and the thought of the heat that would lead ot jumping. In passing pictures or things about 9/11, if there is a picture of someone jumping or even if you can see the spec from a distance along the side of a building, he tears up and leaves the room and cant talk.

After he was home, I was doing laundry at one point and had washed the shirt, he was wearing that day. It was a black shirt covered in that grey "stuff", and he started yelling at me, completely out of control. He was angry that I had washed the shirt and didn't I realize that someone might need it because it was all that was left of people's burned bodies. For weeks, at random times, he would step intoa room crying and say how grateful he was to be alive and why didn't he die that day.

A week after he was home, he got so sick. He had boils on the skin that would have been exposed that day, his head, his ears, his arms. he had a103 degree temperature, and I am sure it is due to what he was exposed to that day.

The experiences of that day/week are probably part of our history that we do not talk to one another about much. He just can't do it. He did share some of it at devotions at Mercy Ships this week, but he does not get into the real details.

Afterwards for so long, things were weird in our area around Cape Cod. There were armed soldiers at the base of the bridges, they were actually everywhere. mark was back on a plane as soon as airspace opened again. Since then, he calls as he is walking on a plane and as soon as it lands, that was new.

That day changed us all. I am sad for those that lost family and for those that relive the events every day. I am grateful for the men and women who protect our freedom, who live and die for our freedom. We, as Americans, are so blessed because we live most days feeling safe, and that was a day that our safety was rocked. We have been in somany places around the world where safety would be a different experience. It makes me sadwhen people bash this great nation, because I am so happy to be born free, to live free, to live without fear. I am glad for that day, because God started a new work in our family that I believe led us to where we are today. I would not want to relive it, but it makes us who we are today.

Today is a day fr everyone just to focus on remembering and being grateful for our freedom and for all those who live and die for this nation. I AM PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN ON 9/11.