Twenty Years Later
God is closest to those with broken hearts. ~Jewish saying
Yesterday, I made my own pilgrimage of sorts.
Back to where I was 20 years ago, when I first heard the news of the terrorist attack on our nation.
I was just a few months into my new career as a web designer and actively seeking clients to help build my business.
The local shopping mall was in need of a website, and I wanted the job; however, they wanted separate interviews with the candidates, and 10 a.m. Sept. 11, 2001, was the selected time for our presentations.
As I parked in the lot, I heard horrific news on the radio — a plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers in NYC.
Now I wasn’t so far removed from my days as a journalist that news like this could be ignored. Still, I went into the “interview,” where everyone was talking about the attack, gave my presentation, and raced back home to glue myself to the TV (barely giving a thought to how I’d done at the interview, or whether I’d get the job).
Fast forward 20 years. Twenty! Who knew I’d still be doing web design 20 years later? Who knew how much our world would change over the course of two decades?
So I returned to the mall, but not the actual interview room (which had been gutted in an earlier head-to-toe renovation). I mentally took myself back to 2001 and once again, allowed the feelings to wash over me — confusion over how and why something like this had happened, anger over the senseless killing of nearly 3,000 innocent people, patriotic pride in the heroic actions of so many rescue workers and others, and anguish over the property damage sustained and a nation’s innocence and security shattered.
I walked around the mall, nostalgic over the demise of three big anchor stores, sad over the deaths of two (Daddy and Dallas) important to me, and disconcerted over how little control any of us really have over the ills of our world.
After allowing the tears to fall, I closed my eyes in prayer For I firmly believe that if things are to get better, prayer is the best place to start.
How was your Patriot Day?
