Today is my birthday. It’s always a happy day. for me and I hope yours is too on your special day. But eleven years ago, life and those around me became more dear to me than I could ever imagine. You most likely felt the same when you witnessed the horrific events that day.
I was a Public Health Nurse at the time and was in the County Bldg. packing supplies to go out and visit my homecare patients for the day. Just as one of the secretaries wished me a Happy Birthday, our educator who was on line yelled for everyone to come to her cubicle. I raced over with maybe twenty others–and watched the second tower get hit and go down. Dear God, I thought, what kind of sick joke was this? Then I saw the expression on the educator’s face and knew it was no joke. It was the real thing. But how could something like this happen? I asked myself. Surely this wasn’t possible. That day we, as everyone else throughout our great nation did, cried and mourned the senseless loss of so many as we stood as shock took hold.
Then I remembered my daughter-in-law was to be at a meeting in one of the towers that morning. To make a long story short–Thank God she had to cancel from attending her meeting, but unfortunately some of her partners went. Whether we, individually, knew someone who died that day in the towers or those fighting to rescue others we all suffered a punishing blow to our pride and feeling of security as well as the devastation of losing so many lives.
So, I’m cutting this short today and asking each and every one of you to take a moment of silence to honor and remember those who either lost their lives in the towers or by fighting to rescue those who were down. And when you’re done, please remember to give thanks that we live in such a great nation, that we have military, firefighters, police, Homeland Security–the list goes on–that serve to protect us all. God Bless America.
Thank you, Bev
Beverly Wells, Author 