Seven years ago, I was much younger. I was also upside-down in a dentist chair for a regular tooth cleaning. They had a local radio station broadcasted over the speakers in every room.
At first I thought it was a radio bit. Sort of like the "War of the Worlds" panic decades ago when it was played over the radio. People believing it was real. Then I thought it was a tragic plane accident. When the unthinkable 2nd plane struck, I realized we were truly under attack.
I drove back to work in shock mode. Same mode I was in when I received the call about my mother being taken to the emergency room, both hands on steering wheel, back ramrod straight. I wasn't scanning the skies fearfully yet, that would happen the next day.
It would be a few years before I would allow myself to go to a public event, like a baseball game. By myself, surely I was so insignicant that a terrorist wouldn't notice me. With a huge crowd, I was fearful of being a more exciting target.
A month later, I had to go back to the dentist. And a plane crashed in New York. Think I had a fear of dentists before? That fear was tripled by now. I told everyone not to fly if I had a dentist appointment.
9/11 changed me, like so many others. Kindof like when you are a child and you realize that you aren't invincible. You realize you can die. On 9/11, I realized that the US of A wasn't invincible. We can suffer and have our loved ones taken away from us. By just a handful of radicals. Someone clever and wicked can use our own tools, our own equipment, against us.
So when you fly, and have to watch as they toss items that aren't allowed, don't be hateful. When I last flew (I rarely fly), I had to watch as she searched my bag and threw away my expensive perfume (not a huge loss, there wasn't much left). She seemed to expect me to explode. I said "That's ok. You're only trying to keep us safe." She stopped what she was doing to look at me. She thanked me. Said she wished more people felt that way.
Never forget.
