In honor of our troops and all lives lost on 9/11/01. I'll never forget that day, as i'm sure many, especially americans, who witnessed the horrific events. For me, it was my birthday. A beautiful sunny morning. The neighborhood kids had brought me hand-made b-day cards before heading off to school. I got my older kids on the bus and was getting jack ready for his two-week well baby visit to his doctor. I was still physically getting over just having a baby and was enjoying my morning getting this together to leave the house. I had cartoons on the tv for spencer who was 2 yrs old. My mom called to ask if I had the tv on and i told her "Dora"...lol. She said a plane crashed in to one of the towers in NYC, so I turned the channel right b4 the 2nd plane hit. I was talking to my mom and shaking, wondering what on earth was going on...also hearing the fear and astonishment in the newscasters voices. I finally had to say good-bye to mom and get ready to take jack to the dr. On the way I had the radio on and heard a 3rd flight had hit the Pentagon and a 4th plane was missing. That's when it hit me what was possibly going on and thought....this is the beginning of the end and we are now at war. While in the Dr.'s office I was so jittery not knowing what was going on. They didn't have a tv or radio on in there. I couldn't wait to get out so that I could turn the radio back on in the car. By the time I got out I heard the plane had crashed in PA.

Then my mind turned to ppl I knew who could have been affected by these crashes. I had a cousin who worked in New York and a friend from church who worked at the pentagon. I called my mom back to see if she had heard from her sister and knew if my cousin was ok. I think she hadn't (of course all the phone lines were soooo busy that day) but we heard the next day that she was fine, but had a close friend who had dropped off a child at daycare and turned around to get the child right after the first plane hit.... they both got out ok. Our church friend was not working that day either and so was ok too. The eeriest thing though was NOT hearing the planes the week after the event. We live in BWI's flight path and hear planes go overhead ever 5 minutes. We almost don't even notice it anymore except when your outside having a conversation either on the phone or with a neighbor and talking from a slight distance. You have to stop what you're saying until the plane passes. So when there were no planes flying it was too creepy. Being close to D.C. though every once in a while you would hear a plane in the distance (military) and that would be even scarier!

Since then my b-day has never been the same. The first couple years really sucked. I just didn't want to be reminded...it was very depressing. I have gotten past feeling bad that it's on my birthday though and can celebrate my day happily again, but will still never forget what happened 9/11/2001. God bless all the family's that lost loved ones and the hero's that helped.