Heartache and Victory

Yesterday I was too full to write. Writing was not the release of emotions it usually is for me. Generally, when I write, it's a chance to spill out across the page all the thoughts that swirl through my head. But yesterday, I was just too full, and the words drowned instead of flowing.

Yesterday was 7 years since planes hit the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and a lonely field. It seems so strange to realize how much time has passed. I've changed, but one look at the images and I'm back there. For many people where I live, the events of that day are abstract. They didn't know anyone who was killed, or even there, and some had never seen the towers in real life. For them, it was like really good CGI. They just don't comprehend what happened as real. In the rural country side, the events of that day haven't changed day to day life as much as people had feared, and it wasn't a life changing event.

For me it was. For me, it was a call that came far too close. Yesterday, someone asked me where I was that day. Here's the answer:

Getting ready for class. It was a differential equations class. I had gotten out of the shower, and I usually had a morning news show on in the background. That morning, it was a show out of New York. I saw the second plane hit. And the first tower fall (I was in show by then). I actually went to class, where the prof tried to tell us that it wasn't a terrorist attack and that there were a lot of rumors (there were, but I had seen the tower fall, so that wasn't a rumor). I actually sat in class (I have no notes for that day) until he handed out the weekly quiz. I put my name on it, and handed it in. It's the only quiz I failed in college. I went back to my room (with several friends in tow) and turned the tv on. Then I started making calls. It took me a while to get a hold of my Mom, and she only confirmed the worst of my fears. My Dad was supposed to be on one of those flights. All I had known was that he was supposed to have been flying from Boston to California that day. Thankfully, they had changed the meeting. Instead of having him fly out for the meeting, they had it by teleconference. Since he was in Boston, and they shut the cell phone towers down except in cases of emergency, it took a while to get a hold of him.

My sisters DF was actually a firefighter. He and his best friend/partner had switched jobs for the day. His friend was in the tower. He didn't make it. BIL (soon enough) was buried in the rubble under a firetruck. He still blames himself for his friend's death. After 7 years, he's just going back to being a firefighter (and only in a town where the highest building is 2 stories).

I can't look back without realizing just how lucky I was that day, and just how many people never got that call that their loved ones were safe.


In other news (which I avoided for most of yesterday), there was a victory in the disability rights world yesterday. http://www.civilrights.org/library/features/024-senate-adaaa.html The Senate passed an amendment to the ADA that allows for a wider range of people to be considered disabled, and therefore eligible for protection under the law. It's about time!