13 Years in the Rearview Mirror

Most of my readers know that this journey began with the Towers falling 13 years ago. I don't want to repeat myself here so the Reader's Digest version is this: I was pursuing acting in New York in 2001. I was in the city that fateful morning. I couldn't get home because the island was shut down and I lived in Queens. I could not get to my husband and we didn't know what was next. This fundamentally changed my husband; maybe more than I. The next day, Mr. Hero earned his moniker by declaring that he was joining the National Guard. And thus, my life changed from an actress in New York to my current standing now as a military wife and SAHM in Austin, TX.But I am here to tell the story. My husband served and returned home safely to me. I am blessed.Today I will honor those who did not come home. I will honor the first responders and their families. I will honor those lost in the planes and those that fell with the towers.Tears come as I type when I remember the pictures of missing loved ones that surrounded the devastation. They stream as I remember funeral after funeral of men and women who wouldn't even have a casket. Nothing to serve as a lasting notation that they were here. That they were there. They were lost.Today I will not get lost in how my life changed. Rather I will think of those whose lives were taken. I will think of those left behind whose lives were destroyed.Today I will remember and I will never forget.Thirteen years in the rearview mirror and I still see in clearly; as clear as the skies before the first plane hit.