Where Were You?

Someone asked me this morning that all important question. Where were you? Not something anyone forgets. Me? I was sleeping. That week I was in a night training class, otherwise I would have been on my way to work. Even though she had just been outside a few hours before, my dog woke me up, dancing around like she needed out. Remember walking down the hallway and making the turn into the kitchen, I remember thinking who the hell left the TV on? Always turned it off before bed. Saw something was burning. Made it to the back door and opened it, only for the dog to stand there looking up at me, she didn't want out. That's when it registered what building that was burning on TV. The two together, and something with the flags, it clicked then. Going back in there I turned up the sound. Airplane, it was an airplane. Remember thinking what a huge mistake somebody made. Listening to see, what kind, what airline, who was to blame blah blah. When the second plane hit I went numb, the newscasters fell silent and couldn't hide there disbelief. They knew, as did the rest of the world that this was not an accident. The bottom of the screen at some point changed to "Attack On America". Three words that cut thru me, it was real and I was watching it live. Watched them fall, knowing not everyone got out, praying that they did anyway. We wondered for an hour what would happen to the two planes that were missing. They were gone, one into the Pentagon one went down fighting in a Pennsylvania field. Left to sort out what I just saw, hear the silence from the airport two miles away, I couldn't see the planes coming anymore. Feeling very small I called my dad, he always knows what to say. He did, he had already moved from shock to the pissed off part, and he went on in anger about the hell some nation had just brought down on themselves. There would be hell to pay.

There's a scene from a movie I thought of today, don't remember the movie but the scene stood out to me (I think it was about a volcano) everyone is walking covered in ash and debris. A little boy said "Don't we all look the same, we're all the same now." That moment, on that day, we all were the same. From the business men running for there lives in Manhattan, the rescuers who went in when everyone else was running out, men and women on there way to work, truck drivers, cops, construction workers, waiters, pilots. Everyone united in grief for what just befell our country. There was a poster board someone overseas (in Europe but I don't remember where) held up that simply said "We're All Americans Now."

The first time I heard this song was what? Two months later? Driving down Pilot Rd to pick a friend up from work I had to pull over...