Yahoo! is asking Americans how September 11 changed them. Below is an account from a reader.
The first romantic getaway without our three children (aged 5, 15, and 18) was totally foreign and merely a dream that was going to become a reality September 13, 2001. I had been a stay-at-home Mother for 16 of those previous years, and our marriage needed a boost!
My husband and I found three families willing to babysit our kids. Then we saved our money, and booked the vacation of a lifetime, only to watch our dreams burn down along with the twin towers on September 11th. Within four hours of that fateful morning we received a phone call from American Airlines Advantage Desk, instructing us to “make alternate plans” for our flights from Dallas. We canceled our entire itinerary and sat in the living-room devastated by not only the mass carnage on the screen but the realization that our hopes had been dashed along with it.
I will say this in the nicest way I know: If the United States armed services had recruited me that day, I would have found Osama bin Laden much sooner than they did! You should never upset a housewife wishing to rendezvous with her husband!
There were tears and many days that slowly passed. We prayed for both the victims and their families, realizing we had only lost a vacation while many had lost the love of a lifetime.
I eventually took up crocheting in order to make sense of my personal loss. I decided to crochet an 8′ x 10′ blanket of a 48-star United States flag-pattern I had seen in a women’s magazine. I completed my mission during the summer of 2002. I entered my crocheted flag in the Texas State Fair’s crochet competition at Dallas Fair Park and was floored that my first attempt at crocheting won 10th place!
God bless the USA flag, and may her stripes ever wave!