I remember the Red Cross got a huge number of donations of blood, maybe more than ever before or since but it wasnt needed. They weren’t hurt just dead. Thousands of people dead, killed by a man they never met and a way of life they could never understand and which I hope we never do.

I went over to get my father and we went up to Century to think on what a terrible thing had just happened. As I passed the Courthouse I saw the flag was still flying at full-staff. I turned around, walked inside and choked out that they needed to change it to half-mast. They rushed to do it.

Same thing with Century City Hall. By the time we got to the post office, it was already at half-staff.

We went into Burger King, watched the word around us looking the same but knowing it was different.

We brought a small tv in and set it up so we could watch the news. I remember thinking that “we’re under attack and life as we know it will never be the same again.” We sat and cried and watched the breaking news all day. I was managing a restaurant then and we had no customers all day long. I called the schools to find out what they were doing and was told that all schools were locked down until further notice. We just sat there, looking at the tv, crying, occasionally going to the restroom to vomit, each of us lost in our own thoughts and fears, wondering if we were now at war and fearing that it was true, scared for our military loved ones and our families, worrying over our kids being at school and us being unable to be with them and scared that we were going to die and never see our children again, panicking over the thought that our country and our lives would be torn apart, fearing for our safety and most of all……wondering who was responsible for this heinous act and WHY?????

I remember thinking, to borrow a line from an old I think Don Henley or Glenn Fry song, this is the end of the innocence.

I got off of the phone with my Dad and immediately called my husband who is a Reservist and works on a local base. My husband knew nothing of it because he didn’t have access to a television in his office. I got of fhe phone with him so he could go in search of a television and I called my sister-in-law. Luckily my brother-in-law had been running late that day and hadn’t made it to work when the plane struck the Pentagon. I remember sitting on the couch holding my infant son sobbing for all of the lost lives, knowing that my sense of security as an American was forever going to be altered and worried that my husband might get activated.

My heart goes out to all of the people that lost loved ones on Sept. 11, 2001 and to all of the people that have lost ones that are helping to protect our freedoms.