Where were you Sept. 11, 2001?

2001 was an eventful year in our lives. My oldest brother, Ben, died from complications of cancer surgery on Jan. 19. In May, our oldest son, Roy, came home with burnout from his almost ten years of preaching the Gospel. I could write a lot about both those experiences, but we all know that the events of September 11 shook the whole world.

I was actually prepping for a colonoscopy on that fateful day--a liquid diet, then at 4 PM I was to begin drinking the clean-out stuff. Since my brother Ben had had colon cancer, it seemed like a good idea for me to be checked to see if my colon was in good shape.

So, Tuesday, as usual, I made a trip to Reynoldsville to sell my rugs at the farmer's market. Two of our workers, Cindy Peter and Karen Richardson, were at Doretha Murray's and I had something to give to them--mail, I think. I left home earlier than usual and stopped there to give them whatever it was. Donna Crawford and I had just come back from convention at Madisonville, KY, and I had a picture of the workers there. I was showing it to Cindy and Karen when Doretha's phone rang. Her niece, Rhonda DeBlasio, was calling to tell her that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. A few minutes later, she called with the news that a second plane had hit the other tower. Yikes! What was happening anyways?

Well, I moseyed down in to town for the farmer's market where we were all nervously setting up our goods. I remember looking up often, and wondering about things flying over. The man set up next to me had his radio going in his car, and I listened with him some. There were more reports of planes, but the information at that time was rather sketchy.

Business was certainly poor. Before long, the streets were clear of people. I expect most were glued to a televisions somewhere. I remember a man walking up the street with a Bible in his hand. He was a preacher and was inviting people to a prayer service that afternoon in his church.

I decided to go home early. Others were, too.

At four o'clock I began my prepartation for the colonoscopy, wondering if this was really necessary since I really wondered if we would be blown off the map by morning! President Bush had cleared the skies of all air traffic, and it seemed almost surreal to look up and think that the sky was empty of planes.

The next day I had my test at the hospital. For the first time, I saw on the television what so many people saw repeatedly--the planes going into the towers. We had survived another day...

Saturday morning after that was another farmer's market in DuBois. That day I had some red, white, and blue woven trim that I made into little bows, put a pin in it, and gave them out to people. I did not charge for them, but many people wanted to pay me a dollar anyways...

So, how did it change me? For a good while I felt that life as I had known it was surely over and that war would just break out everywhere. I believe that the fact that our country has held together since that day is because God's purpose for this old world has yet to be accomplished. He is ever merciful to give us the time we need to get to know Him better.

I think that it changed the way people in our society relate to those we love--we are more communicative about our love. Cell phones have come into common use, and we often overhear people saying "I love you" or "Love you, bye". We realized that life could be snatched from us at any time.

Whether the lessons learned from September 11 have continued to this day is debatable, but it certainly affected our society.