Remembering...

...all those who lost their lives in the horrific events of September 11th 2001.

I'm sure everybody remembers where they were, what they were doing, who they were with when they first heard news of the attack.

I was at work in Coventry when my boss rang up to tell me "a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center". At that point we all thought it was just some terrible accident however it quickly became apparent that wasn't the case. Someone rushed out and bought a TV and for the next couple of hours no work was done as we all sat around watching the live coverage. We all knew it was bad but nobody anticipated that the towers would actually come down. It was one of the most shocking things I have ever seen and even now TV footage still makes me stop what I am doing even though I must have seen it hundreds of times.

My boss sent us all home early that day. It was eerie heading towards the train station that afternoon, everybody was talking about the same thing. I went home to an empty house as my parents were away and my boyfriend at the time was also away and just sat watching Sky News all night. I remember my boyfriend phoning me at about 7pm that evening from the car - he was traveling back from Scotland with his parents. Amazingly, they'd been listening to CDs all day in the car and had no idea what had happened.

I visited Ground Zero on a trip to New York in 2004, however I didn't take any photos at the time because it didn't feel appropriate, it wasn't a tourist attraction after all and I didn't feel it should be treated as one. There were a lot of personal memorials, flowers and notes left by people and what surprised me was the size of, what was by now, the makings of a construction site. Everywhere around the site was pretty much back to normal however you could still see the scars on many buildings. It felt strange to stand there, right where it happened and try to imagine what it had been like that morning.

I find it incredible that this event that touched our lives will just be some historical event to my children, of little importance to them. I wonder if they'll sit open-mouthed when they see it for the first time like I did. I doubt it, but they will learn about how and why it happened because what happened in those attacks 9 years ago is still affecting peoples lives on a daily basis. We still have soldiers fighting and losing their lives in Afghanistan and we're still at risk of terrorism here in the UK, the current level from the Home Office being "Severe" which apparently means a terrorist attack is likely. 9/11 shouldn't be confined to dusty history books.

There but for the grace of God...

love & kisses
Mrs M x