Five Years Ago...

An ordinary day.

Milk on cereal. Clothes humming in the dryer. Math books cracked open. Teeth brushed. Sun shining through the kitchen window. A kiss good-bye. A phone call.

A not-so-ordinary day, as it turned out.

In pondering what I was doing on September 11, 2001, I realize that my day started out very much the same as many of the victims of the attacks. We got up, we got ready and got on with our day, as if nothing out of the ordinary would come our way.

But it did.

Most of my day was spent trying to come to terms with what happened. It took me quite a while, a few days in fact, to understand the severity of what had occured. I comforted my children, or at least I tried. Answering questions about whether or not we were safe was difficult because, technically, I knew that the answer had become "no" that morning. I like to be truthful with my kids and on this day it was not easy.

The family and friends of the victims knew that their lives were forever altered on that day. Someone was gone. Someone who was supposed to come home. Someone was left alone. These are the people that I think about and pray for today: Those left behind on what started out to be just an ordinary day.

Never forgotten...

Thanks, Shannon, for organizing this. Click here to read more memories of September 11.