Our home was in San Diego at Mesa Village. I don't know recall why, but I stayed home that day from work, I am pretty certain it was a migraine.  Cody was 11 and Evan was almost 9 and I had taken them to school and went home to go back to bed.  When I woke up I was in the back yard for some reason around 10:30a and my favorite nieghbor Jim from over across the carport to ask how come I was not at work, and if I had seen the news?  He said that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, and it appeared it was NOT an accident. I told him I hadn't. I thought that sounded so strange, and that it was far away in New York, and I was just thinking about the plane and the building. I hadn't processed the part that involved PEOPLE.

Well, I think I must have watched the news for 2 hours straight. I still recall how I felt sick to my stomach watching the shocking footage of people jumping to their deaths from the building.  All the sudden, I needed my boys to be near me.  I called the school and said I was coming to get them.  I think I told the boys what had happened, and I'm pretty sure they understood what had happened, but of course could not grasp the magnitude and severity.  I know it was the topic at school later - especially since we lived near Miramar "Top Gun" Marine Base and plenty of parents were affected as time went on.

One poignant moment I recall was when I heard "Meet Me In The Stairwell" on the Radio.  First of all, the background instrumental music was one of my all-time favorite Christmas Songs - Silent Night, by Mannhiem Steamroller.  It's so peaceful. Then to hear what is to be the voice of God in response to the tragedy - was more than I could stand.   Each time it came on the radio - I would stop what I was doing and listen. One time, Cody saw me go the radio to turn it up and I was just standing right in front of the radio listening and he asked what I was doing and I said "shhhh - I want to hear this". Cody listened and felt it too and there we stood through the whole song and Istarted to cry thinking of those who lost thier loved ones, those who who called out to their Heavenly Father on that fateful day, and with gratitude that I know God lives and that he is aware of me personally, and of all those who call out for him for the first or very last time in thier lives.  Every once in a while, on an anniversary I hear it, and it still puts a lump in my throat.

For a few weeks, or maybe even months. I became a news-junkie. I had to watch the news in the morning and at night - I had to know that there had been no new attacks.  It was the first time in my lifetime that I had been aware of the US bieng attacked by a foriegn country. It was too close to home. For the first time - I worried about war, and about the world that my boys would grow up in.