What difference does it make?

We all have our memories of that day.

Mine is that I had tickets, for weeks, to go to the wedding of my dear friends' daughter.  The wedding was to be the 15th.  I was to fly out on the 12th.

The morning of the 11th, I had to get to class (nursing school pre-reqs) and the Rickster was supposed to be at a 7a shift and was running late.  We were in NM. 

My friend, Joe, who was in Cincy, called me and said, "Turn on the TV"

"What channel?"

"It doesn't matter."

Those words made a chill run through me.   I turned on the Today show as she quickly told me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.  I pictured a small, private plane that had accidentally gone off course.  While we watched, I saw a large airliner run into one of the buildings.  I was confused, because I could still see smoke, but the only thing that made sense was, "...that's a replay, right?"

<silence>

"No.  It's another plane."

Rick was in such a hurry that he didn't really process what had just happened and ran out the door.  My classes were cancelled and I just sat there, alone, watching the coverage nonstop all day.

At work, later, I discovered that my then charge nurse's sister-in-law was killed at the Pentagon.

All flights were cancelled.  Kids in your twenties, let that sink in -- ALL FLIGHTS WERE CANCELLED.  For days.

I was finally able to fly to Cincy on the 14th, and it was so odd.

Security was the same as always (all the ridiculous, pointless changes came later) and so it actually seemed like a normal flight.  At first.  The plane was virtually empty and the flight crew was so deferential.  Everybody got food, everybody got to watch the in-flight movie, they kept thanking us for flying.   My original flight, with a layover -- somewhere -- was now a direct flight.  For some reason, as the pilot announced we were approaching to land, I got a weird, frightened feeling.  Thinking about those people on the planes.  It still gives me nightmares.

As awful as it all was,  for a while after this country came together in a way that must have been reminiscent of the 1940s, during WWII. 

I miss that feeling that we were really and truly one country.









Where were you?

I also want to pay tribute  Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen A. Doherty and Tyrone S. Wood.   Our former Secretary of State, after being part of a ridiculous story about a video prompting the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, then had the temerity to ask, "What difference, at this point, does it make?"

Ask the families of these men. 

It makes a difference.