Always Remember to Never Forget

Dedicated to the men, women, children, fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents who lost their lives and to anyone that lost someone they loved on September 11, 2001. Dedicated to the brave men and women who responded to the emergency calls and to the Good Samaritans who risked everything to try to help others in their time of need. Dedicated to the men and women in uniform that have fought the War on Terror since this horrible massacre.

Thank you to all of you.









This title was given to me on one of my Facebook statuses when I was asking for ideas on what to write about. I think the person that put it there meant it to be something along the lines of making sure you remember to not forget to do things. But to me, that phrase seemed to be more appropriate for a blog in remembrance of today’s history.

 

I was in the eighth grade on September 11, 2001. It started out as a normal day and had progressed as a normal day up to the beginning of second period – Algebra with Mr. Daye. My friend, Amy, was in the class with me. We would always write notes to each other with our graphic calculators and pass them to each other so I sat down to write the first note to her.

Out of nowhere, our principal came running into the room and asked to speak with him and stepped out of the room for a minute. He came back in with his face as pale as a sheet and abruptly turned on the television. At that point, we all knew something was seriously wrong so we stopped talking. He stopped at one of the news channels where it was showing the Twin Towers in NYC. One of the towers was on fire. He stood there, motionless, as he watched the video on the screen and listened to what was being said. The silence in the room was deafening. I don’t think I had ever heard a silence like it was in that room up to that point or even since then. At this point, the headline read something to the effect of there being a horrible accident.

The camera had switched back to showing the news anchor in the studio and in the background someone said “oh my God”. The screen suddenly flipped back to showing the towers but this time, both of them were on fire instead of just the one. They split the screen to where the news anchor was on the left side of the screen and the video feed from NYC was on the right side and they replayed the footage from moments before where it showed the second plane hitting the second tower. The headline at the bottom of the page suddenly changed to read “Terrorist Attack”.

We sat there in complete silence for the rest of the class.

We were startled by the bell when it rang to signal us to change classes. I don’t remember the next class I had, but I do remember I had a female teacher who announced to the class that the Board of Education was in a meeting to decide whether or not to dismiss schools early for the day. (I found out a few days later that Charleston was number 5 on Hitler’s hit list because of all the chemical plants and they were afraid of an attack on our city.) While we were waiting on news of an early dismissal, the TV showed the Pentagon.

The school board decided not to release us early so we watched TV for the rest of the day in every class.

Lunch finally came and I went to go eat with my friends – Amy, Amber, and Brittany – but none of us could eat. Instead, we formed a circle. Brittany’s dad was a pastor, so we decided it was fitting that she would be the one to lead us in prayer. (Anyone that knows me well, knows that I am not very much of a religious person. I was raised around a Methodist church and attended many churches of different denominations, but I have formed my own religious beliefs that don’t conform to one specific religion.) This is the one and only time I have prayed in school. Even people that we didn’t know and people that we weren’t particularly friends with came over to stand around us while praying. We prayed for the safety of the people inside the buildings, the people going into the buildings to rescue people that couldn’t rescue themselves, and for families that would be affected.

We found out about the plane in PA that was brought down by people on the plane after lunch. I knew what they had done was heroic, but the extent of it really didn’t register with me.

Several people that I know had relatives, friends, or friends of friends that were victims of the attack. I saw their tears. I saw their hurt. I saw their pain. So when the night of May 1, 2011 came and I checked my Facebook, like I do a million times a day, and saw that Bin Laden had been killed, I was ecstatic. I cannot begin to describe the feeling of elation and utter joy I felt when I saw that headline. The murderer that had taken the lives of thousands and had touched the lives of millions had finally been found and dealt with. Say what you want about his death and how it was handled, but personally, I think it was the best for everyone involved.

But no matter what differences there are between people, please take at least a moment every Patriot Day and remember what so many people lost, what so many people sacrificed, and what so many people gave that day. Not just the people in the planes and the people in the buildings, but also the firefighters and police and good Samaritans of the day. And please also make sure you take the time to thank people in the military. Regardless of if you agreed with the War on Terror or not, they still were fighting for you to keep your freedom and to protect your homeland from another vicious attack like that from happening again.

 

Side note: If you can’t find a simple thank you for the people in uniform for the service they provide, then in my opinion, you don’t deserve the right to live in this country and reap the benefits of living here that they protect.

 

 

 

I Don't Bite

I was 20 years old when I met Brian. I was in sales at Springfield Ford and he was the Senior Master mechanic in the service department. But we never actually conversed until I moved over to the service department to be their scheduler and a fill-in service writer and I didn’t have the slightest idea as to what I was doing. The first time I answered the phone and the caller had a question as to what could possibly be wrong with their car and neither of the other service writers were around to ask, I went running to the shop to find someone to answer the question. It just so happened that Brian’s bays were the closest to the doorway. (I had also been told that he was the senior master, so if I had any questions about anything, I could ask him.) He was nice enough to talk to the caller and really didn’t give me any grief about it, so any other time I had a caller with a question, I just took the phone to him.

Eventually, I had started to get curious about what he was fixing and asked him to show me what he was doing. From then on, he was always explaining things to me and if I didn’t have any other things that were pressing to do, I would stand there and watch him. I’m sure it got irritating after a little bit, especially when I would get in the way, but he had an incredible amount of patience and never turned me away.

The first time I met the boys was at work when their mother dropped them off to Brian from their visit with her. Timothy was five years old, small, skinny, shy. Thomas was three years old, smaller, skinnier, and even shyer than his brother. Neither of them would come to me, much less talk to me… until the candy. Once I gave them candy, they opened up a LOT more. Little did I know, they had me hooked from that moment on.

One day, Brian asked me to go to lunch with him and the guys from work – it was their wing Tuesday special at BW3. I said yes. Much to my surprise, he asked me to go to lunch with them almost every single day after that.

Then another day, I went into the shop to ask Brian what was for lunch that day and he told me that he had to run home to get something and wouldn’t be going to lunch. He caught me off guard when he invited me to go with him, but I did anyway. That was the first time we were alone.

The next time he didn’t go to lunch was when he wanted to go to the nursing home where his ex-father in law was to take him some pictures. Again he asked me if I wanted to go with him. Again, he caught me off guard. And again, I said yes.

Eventually, Brian asked me to go to dinner with him. (Can you guess what I said? Yea I know, I’m predictable.) I spent the few days before looking for a new outfit… something nice and casual, not over dressy but still classy. I decided on a nice pair of jeans, heels, and a fitted black v-neck long sleeve shirt with a blue lacy undershirt. We decided to go to TGIFridays but I wanted to meet him there instead of having him come pick me up. When I got there, I was shocked yet again. Brian showed up in a button down dress shirt, dress pants, and dress shoes. I’m used to being the one that is over dressed… but not the other way around! It wasn’t awkward like I thought it would be. I actually enjoyed his company very much.

Not too long after that, Brian asked me to go to his house so he could make me dinner. Who knew he would actually be a good cook? (Anyone that knows me well knows I am not the best cook… I can make a few things and that’s about it.) After I realized that I wasn’t going to die from his food and he realized that he would get to show off, I started going to his house for dinner on a pretty regular basis.

One night while the kids were away, I went to his house to watch Talladega Nights since he hadn’t seen it before and I had it on DVD. He started out on his end of the couch and I started lying in the corner of the couch facing the TV. But then he said it… those three little life changing words. Ones that I didn’t ever think would affect me the way that they did. Can you guess what those words were? Close, but no. Not those three words, but ones that you wouldn’t expect to be said and then proceed to lead into what happened next. (Which I will not be describing by the way… you can use your imagination if you so choose.) Those words were:

“I don’t bite.”

Really? I didn’t think I was THAT into him. But, hey, what can I say? What happened, happened. No going back. Needless to say, our relationship was given a shove into serious after that. We continued to see each other outside of work pretty often. Things were going pretty perfectly.

But then we got the news. (No, I wasn’t pregnant.) The owner of the place where we were working made his announcement that the dealership was closing the following week. The night before it closed was the first night that Brian and I spent together. We rode into work the next day together which pretty much confirmed to everyone there that we were together.

Every day after that for about two months, Brian would ask me to spend the night again. Finally, he cleared out a few drawers for me (I still had my own apartment for several months while we were together) and then eventually, I took over one of the closets in the master bathroom.

The rest is history – our history – together.  

Letter

What would you say to a person that you've never met? Don't know? Yea... me either.

It's not long, but I've been working on this letter for a while now mostly because I was really unsure of what to say. I never got the chance to meet the man that would now be my father-in-law. He passed away a few months before Brian and I started "casually dating". I've heard a lot about him... the majority of it good. So if I were to be able to write a letter to him, it would go something like this:





Dear Roger,

You never met me, but I'm now married to your youngest son. We met not too long after you passed away.

Brian tells stories about you all the time - his face lights up whenever he talks about you. There's the one about him curling up in the combine and going to sleep while you were in there. There's the one where he walked on top of the extra seed that you didn't need to plant and the bags got ripped open so you couldn't take them back. There's the one about when he drove his tractor all the way to your house after a snow storm to plow you out. And there's one about a certain bike shop and Easter baskets. He's taken me by the house that you lived in several times... in fact, we drive past there almost every time we go toward Urbana. We take the kids out to visit your grave although it's not as often as maybe we should.

I wish I would have gotten a chance to get to know you, but in a way, I feel like I have gotten to know at least a part of you through Brian. You helped raise an amazing man. Brian is incredibly patient with me which is great because I can be more than a handful at times. He is an awesome father. His kids are his pride and joy and that is reflected in everything that he does for them. Yea, at times, I think he's entirely too easy on them, but I can't fault him too much for it. He supports me in everything, regardless of if he agrees with it or not. His love is unconditional, which again is great because I definitely push it from time to time. Believe it or not, we have a dog. And a cat! It took a while for him to invite my cat over and it took much longer to get him to agree to a dog, but he did.

The kids are getting HUGE! They're both doing great in school and are in as many sports as they can manage to fit into their schedules. Timothy has also started getting involved in different art projects - he even took a class through the local community college.

I know no one is perfect. Brian isn't. I'm definitely not. It was a rocky start once we got serious. We're both incredibly stubborn. But we have worked really hard on our relationship and I think we've gotten it to where we want it. We may butt heads at times, but I love him very much and I fully intend to stand by the vows that I said to him when we got married. So if you've been worrying about him at all, I just want you to know that you don't have to. He does his best to take care of me and I do my best to take care of him - whether he wants me to or not!

It may be asking a lot, but even though you're not here in person, I would appreciate it if you could give us your blessing on our marriage and our family.

We'll visit you soon...

Samantha