I am far from home in the mid west and absolutely dumbfounded by the total apathy regarding the anniversary of 9/11 here.  We live 10 hours from NYC, and 170 miles south of the Pentagon and not one 9/11 has passed by without our lives virtually grinding to a halt starting at 8:45am and going on for the next hour as we mark the 4 planes that went down that day.  People pull cars over and stop.  They stand in the streets and in stores.  But they stop. They take 60 seconds and they remember.

This morning, as I listened to Taps on CBS, all I heard was happy chatter from my fellow business travelers all around me.  I guess they’ve forgotten what it was like to see people choose to fall 1000 feet to their deaths rather than burn to death in a gutted skyscraper.  I guess they’ve forgotten all those first responders who’ve now been gone long enough for a child to enter and exit our K-12 public school curriculum from start to finish.

What do I remember?  I was on the 7th floor of a children’s hospital teaching – when all the Disney channels moved to the national news.  Katie Couric looked shocked and I recall watching as the 2nd plane hit the twin towers – saying to the student next to me, “That looked like they did that on purpose…”  Reality set in.  But healthcare workers do not stand down.  They keep going.  I let the class go home about an hour early, knowing that the traffic would be impossible given all the military in the area.  I remember telling them to watch the sky – for it would hopefully be the only time in their lifetimes when there were no planes flying overhead other than those of our military.

I’ve been working from the hotel much of today, but had a chance to relive some of the footage I remember so clearly from that Tuesday in September.  I think the people falling/jumping from the building really unglued both me and my husband that day.  We had to turn off the television.  It hadn’t been since Bobby Kennedy that I literally felt sick watching TV.

And today?  We forget?  Knowing of all of the men and women who’ve gone to Iraq and Afghanistan and have lost their lives in the ripples that followed behind that morning….all connected.

Pray for peace.  Real peace.  The cessation of war and hostility.  The cessation of extremism in any form.  Balance people, balance.  We are angels dancing on the head of a pin…there is room for everyone.  No one need die.  We’re here to dance.