The day after September 11

I didn't post this blog yesterday, mainly because I just couldn't get it right. Okay, in all honesty, I didn't type it until today.
But that's no big thing, really. I write everything in my head way before you ever see it in typeface.
I didn't post it because I kept thinking about the actual day of September 11, 2001, and how on that day, nobody had any idea what had just happened. But the next day...after hours of no sleep, and trying to get to the bottom of it, we all had a pretty clear picture of the magnitude of horror. And ten years later, watching the events unfold again on television, I had just that feeling: what in the heck is going on? So I waited. Till today, to see if my thoughts would magically congeal into something more...logical. And I regret to inform you, they have not. There was no lightbulb, no "a-ha!" moment, when I suddenly understood why families have suffered from this tragic day for ten years. Because it was all stemmed from hate. And hate has no logic.
Some of us have suffered less than others, certainly. I didn't lose a family member in the Trade Center, and no one I knew was on one of the flights. We all remember what we were doing on that day - just like my mom remembers what she was doing when she found out President JFK was assassinated. You just remember stuff like that, I guess. I was in school, if you care to know. And I was an Army wife, which presented a set of problems all on its own. My husband wasn't home...he was in Ranger school. Somewhere in the Everglades. I was alone. Next to an Airforce Base, where it was normal for Chinooks and Little Birds and C-130s to hover the area regularly. As I drove to the base, though, that afternoon, the silence in the sky was deafening. The military police were bigger jerks than usual, armed with weapons fit to kill something much bigger than me and my dog, Sarge. We just wanted to get through the gate before the base locked down, and get to someone we knew. Marc Anderson walked out to my car, pet Sarge and asked if I was alright. He said he wasn't sure when I'd see my husband again - he didn't know the plans. Maybe they'd all deploy to help, somewhere. Maybe they'd just go to Iraq and blow up the bad guys. I know a lot of guys were hoping it was the latter. There was a lot of anger, amid the confusion.
There was a lot of fear. I needed my mother...no matter how old you get, when you're scared, you want your mama. I must have called my mother ten times that day. And my two best friends in Georgia, Tracey and Laura. And of course, I had Sarge. During the next few months, Marc was a big brother to me, too. He made sure I got out of the house for a few good dinners, and asked me to come and help pick out an outfit for his brother's expected baby. He was incredibly excited to be an uncle. We even got a boonie hat embroidered, "Lil' Anderson."
That Christmas was bittersweet, in 2001. "The boys," otherwise known as 1st Platoon, came over for Christmas dinner. I made the biggest turkey I could find at the commissary, and enough sides for, well, an army. We had a roaring fire in our old brick fireplace, and that tiny cottage with the wooden walls was never cozier. All the guys spread out on the floor and we watched Shrek. I remember Marc fell asleep with a cleaned-to-the bone turkey leg resting on a plate on his chest. We all joked that he looked exactly like Shrek.
The next day (which is always kind of a letdown anyway, when the festivities are over), the boys all left for Iraq. With the nation whirling around in fear, frustration and uncertainty, it was just the icing on the cake to know that my husband, not to mention the rest of the boys, were heading for war.
And to make matters worse, Marc never came home. Those bad guys took him down, on March 4, 2002. I told you nothing good comes from hate.
So, yesterday was a flood of emotions, as it is every year on the 11th of September. I watched the programs on television and I remembered, of course, what I was doing that day. I still felt the horror and disbelief when I saw the victims jumping from the Trade Center windows. The gruesome thud of bodies, hitting the concrete. The firefighters valiant effort to herd masses of corporate America down dozens of flights of stairs. The shaking voices of wives, hearing a final goodbye from their husbands, on a plane about to crash.
A horror film.
And then I heard the bagpipes. And I love them, but since Marc's memorial service, I just can't do them anymore. Then a beaten and battered American flag triumphantly unfurled at the memorial site, telling the story of her courage, even though her rips and holes and dirty stripes didn't come for free. And I sobbed and sobbed.
And I reached for the phone to call my mother.