Three Days in History

This is going to be a bit of an unconventional post. I know we are all dealing with the memory of 9/11 in our own way. Twenty years has past so incredibly fast. What I would like to do here is share the story my wife and I lived over this three-day period. Ours is just one story of millions. It’s not special, at least not to anyone outside those close to us. But it’s ours. And I hope that it helps you think about your story of those three days.

I will update this tomorrow, and then the next day, revealing and reliving each day in its time. I would love to hear part of your stories, too. I encourage you to share either in the comments on the site, or whatever platform you may be seeing this on. There are things we can all still learn from those three days in history.

September 10, 2001

It was a Monday like most other Mondays. There had been a lot going on in our family in recent weeks - for the entire year actually - and this was going to be the week things got back to normal.

Earlier in the summer the company for which I was working decided to shut its doors rather than go after another round of capital funding. This was the tail end of the “dot com” era and I had taken my shot at working for a startup that was going to make its mark on the world (and our bank account!) We survived just about a year. I started a new job on July 31st. The timing was intentional because the health insurance benefit started on the first of the month after you started. It turns out God was at work (as He was in so many ways during this time) because my wife Barbara had to have emergency gallbladder surgery on August 1st! Needless to say we were grateful. I missed the reminder of that week of my new job, helping to take care of my wife.

The following week I spent in San Francisco (we were already living in Atlanta at that time) for a week of training on some software I needed for my new job. Flying out and back was something that we just took for granted. Over the previous five years or so I had flown a lot. My wife was not crazy about it (she doesn’t fly - she has good reasons!) but it was just part of what I did for work when necessary.

A few days after I got back from San Francisco, we got word that my father-in-law, who had been very sick, had passed away. He lived in Florida, so we got in the car the next day and drove down to be with family. We ended up staying in Florida for several weeks as arrangements were made, and the funeral was held. We came back home the weekend after Labor Day, on September 8th.

My wife’s dad was a proud Naval veteran of World War II, serving as a doctor, and was actually present at Iwo Jima to witness the famous flag raising first-hand. (He had a great story about that!) We have always felt glad in a way that he didn’t have to see what happened just three weeks after his passing.

When we came back home, we felt like we had been through a whirlwind. Barbara was still recovering somewhat from her surgery a few weeks earlier. I was more than a month into a new job and had been in the office all of about 5 days. We were ready to get some normalcy and routine back into our lives.

When I came home that Monday afternoon, Barbara told me that she had asked a friend from church to help her with some things around the house the next day. She was looking forward to the company and the help. I was grateful to be able to have my first (finally!) full week at my new job. I was still learning names - and it wasn’t a very big office.

We went to bed that night still grieving somewhat, but hopeful that things were starting to turn around for us…