TWENTY YEARS LATER

 

Hello, friends.  What a solemn and sad day this is.  Twenty years ago our country was attacked.  Thousands of people died.  And thousands more were scarred forever.  My sister and I are two of them.  I have written about this before but I really need to repeat myself today.  Some of my readers are new and have not heard my story.  Mostly, it is for me.

Twenty years ago Elaine and I were vacationing in Mystic, CT.  We had been there for several days and were going to head home that day.  The day was beautiful.  We both remarked on how clear the sky was.  And it was the perfect temperature.  A perfect day.

Mystic is a beautiful little town that was once a major seaport in colonial New England.  As you can see from this sign it was settled in 1654.

Across the street from where we were staying was Olde Mystik Village.  It is a little park with lots of stores and several restaurants.  We had been there earlier in the week taking pictures of all the beautiful plants and even the ducks swimming in the stream.  We decided to eat breakfast at one of them and so got ready and went over there to eat.

As we were eating we kept hearing the wait staff talking about an accident, but we couldn't figure out what they were talking about.

After we were finished eating, we wandered around the village a bit and then went back to the hotel and started packing to go home.  Elaine was in the bathroom brushing her teeth and I sat on one of the beds and turned on "Good Morning America" while I waited for my turn in the bathroom.  They were showing a picture of a burning building and said it was one of the Twin Towers.  I called to Elaine and asked if that wasn't where she and her friend had eaten once.  She said yes.  I told her it was on fire.  She came into the room, holding her toothbrush and together we watched in horror as the second plane flew into the other tower.

Then we saw the Pentagon burning.  We didn't know what to do.  Here we were in Connecticut and to get back to Elaine's home in New Jersey we had to drive through New York City.  Obviously we couldn't do that.  We were both in shock by this time and so confused.  Should we see if we could stay where we were for another day and hope things would be better the next day?  Should we try to get home or at least part of the way home?  Finally we decided to try to get as close to home as possible.  We had some money if we had to get a hotel room for the night.  And if no hotels were available, we thought we could sleep in the car.

We went back to Mystik Village and bought lots of water and snacks because we didn't know if we would be able to find someplace to eat or drink.  We also went to the bathroom because we didn't know when we would find another restroom.  Then we started out on I-95.

We had to drive the entire width of the state.  All along the highway there were signs saying "NYC closed.  Please use another route."  I thought this was a historic day and took pictures of them.  We had the radio on, changing stations as they faded out so that we knew what was going on.

We got as far as we could and stopped at a rest stop that happened to be open.  (A lot of them weren't.)  All the people there were so nice.  I was talking to Elaine today and that's one of the things she mentioned.  EVERYONE was NICE.  We were all in this together.  We bought a map and tried to decide what route to take.  One of the rest stop employees came over to us and helped us determine which way to go.  He said he would pray for us.  The other travelers we saw looked as shell shocked as we were.

We ended up traveling north into Massachusetts, west into northern New York state, then south (west of NYC) into northern New Jersey and from there to Elaine's house.  It took us all day to do what was a 2 1/2 hour trip there.

I will never forget this day as long as I live.  It was the worst day of my life.  And every year on this day Elaine and I call each other if we can't be together and share with each other.  I'm so glad we were together and didn't have to go through this alone.  I was going to go home the next day, but stayed a couple of days longer with her.  We needed to be together.  And tears still come when we think about this day.

Please love each other.  There should be no room for hate in this world.  Pray for each other.  Love God and trust Him to work out this old world.

I love each of you and pray for you.  Thank you for reading my story.

Kathy