A ringing phone jolted me awake from a fitful, newborn-interrupted sleep. It took me a few moments to realize who was even on the other end of the phone. When I realized who it was, I was angry; angry that my sleep had been interrupted by a woman who calls me just to tell me I should be watching the Oprah show right that minute (even if I’m at work); angry that now I was actually going to have to have a conversation that required me to wake up. My mother-in-law was hysterical, crying and carrying on, telling me to do something I couldn’t even understand. I finally figured out that something big had happened (but had no idea what, yet) and that she wanted me to turn the TV on.

Greg was out of town – in Kansas City visiting Sprint, to be exact. I was alone with three children under 4. I desperately needed my sleep. I put the phone down and hung up with a promise to go check it out, not wanting to get out of bed, and went out to the living room anyway to turn on the TV. I didn’t have to find any particular channel because every channel was covering the planes flying into the Twin Towers in New York. It was chaos, I remember thinking that building is going to fall down. I stil remember waking up face down sprawled out on the bed, alone. I still remember standing in front of the TV, holding the remote watch the planes fly into the tower, and then another one.

It was a rude awakening of many different kinds that morning. Greg’s brother and his partner had just moved to New York a couple of weeks before. I wondered how they were or if they were in one of the towers. I wondered if my step brother was in one of the towers. None of them were as it turns out but that didn’t stop me from wondering and worrying the entire day and trying to contact anyone there who could tell me if they were OK.

Somehow I managed to tear myself away from the TV and prepare my two older kids for pre-school and then come back to hang out with McKinley, who was only 6 weeks old at the time. I didn’t want the chaos of the TV broadcasts to rub off on him so I kept him in his room when the TV was on. I spent the day in kind of a daze waiting to hear from Greg. No planes were flying so he couldn’t get home. That meant I was stuck alone for longer than I had intended to be alone with three very young children. It was a lot to process. It was a lot to think about. I mean if these events were planned, how many other events were planned and waiting for execution?

Greg ended up being stuck in Kansas City for another 5 days and took the Amtrak train home from Omaha (that was quite a drive to even catch the Amtrak train) and even when he did catch the train, that journey took a few days because they couldn’t get fresh crew on the trains where they were supposed to switch crew; there wasn’t any food in the dining car, there weren’t enough sleeper cars, the list went on – suffice it to say, Greg won’t be traveling on Amtrak ever again. He and three other guys ended up renting car in Salt Lake City and driving back to the Bay Area together. In all the chaos and uncertainty of that week, it was a relief to have him back at home and have another adult to talk to about the events on 9/11.

Other than being abruptly woken up that morning, I can’t say I was personally touched by that day – I didn’t personally know anyone killed that day. I can say I loved seeing a country pull together and unite and show that they cared about being American. It’s too bad it took a tragedy like 9/11 to do that. It’s too bad we can’t defend our unique democracy and pull together for that purpose alone. It’s a shame that we have to have an enemy to unite against to appreciate the freedoms we have in America – those freedoms don’t exist in most countries.

Part 2 of this post will be about my drive across country in October 2001 from San Francisco to New York. That included a visit with friends and family all across the country and a few stops in places like the Grand Canyon, the St. Louis Arch, the Liberty Bell, and the Empire State Building. A subsequent cross country journey in 2007 from Pittsburgh to San Francisco included a visit to the Flight 93 crash site – now the site of a memorial to those who sacrificed their lives to thwart the misguided, and to some, evil, intent of those flying the planes that day.

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to participate in a day of service today because of our football schedules, but I will be remembering 9/11 today with my own moment of silence to give thanks to those who gave their lives that day, to those helped pick up the pieces, to those who helped in the rescue efforts, and to those on Flight 93, like Todd Beamer, who stepped up to stop what could have been a a much worse tragedy. I will watch all of the 9/11 TV shows, broadcasts, tributes and memorials and say a silent thank you as I do, much like the silent thank you I say to myself when I see military personnel who, on a daily basis, fight for the freedoms we enjoy as Americans.

What will you do today?