Like so many other mornings, the phone rang before I was awake. My mother-in-law always figured since she was up, everybody must be up, as she delivered some news that could have easily waited another hour or two. This morning was no different. "A plane hit the World Trade Center." "Uh huh," I mumbled, rolling back over, thinking these things happen. An accident. A guy in a small plane probably had a heart attack. Then I wondered about Amy, working hard in Manhattan, knowing she was fine, but got up anyway to turn on the TV. Chaos. The plane was not small. Then, unbelievably, in real time, a second plane hit the other tower and everything changed. As the day went on, smoke, bodies, tumbling buildings, two more planes, Shana to school, Shawn and I to work, hovering around a rabbit-eared black and white TV somebody ran home to get, I finally spoke to Amy. She saw it happen. She had looked up and watched as the plane flew into the building. Probably a dozen more phone calls that day, first hand account of our worst day, the smell, the taste, the pain in her throat, chest, heart, fear in the voice of one of the strongest people I know as she walked and walked and walked. As I listened to a sister I couldn't help, cried about the thousands that were just killed, watched the images I couldn't process and was led by a President I didn't trust, I understood, somehow, that I, she, we, you, would never be the same.
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