11th September 2001 is a date firmly embedded in the minds of Linda and myself as we were making one of our frequent visits to America, a place that we truly love.
On that fateful day, we were in San Antonio, Texas and were really excited at the prospect that morning of visiting The Alamo, the place where Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier met his maker. Dad had often spoken of this place and it's defenders and I can remember thinking how excited he would have been to be in my shoes.
We had risen early and headed over to the motel breakfast room to grab something to eat when we were met by the tv screen showing the first of the twin towers on fire and the tv presenter reporting that a plane had flown into it. Everyone in that room was viewing this as a terrible accident when of course we watched the second plane crash and knew immediately that this had been no accident but the worst terrorist attack in history.
We actually tried to carry on that day as normally as we could but it was impossible as the horror of what had happened and was still happening continued to unfold. Our visit to The Alamo became a blur and remains that way to this very day. The shock all around us was palpable and slowly as the day went on everything seemed to grind to a halt and shut down.
We felt that we just wanted to get home to be with our own family and hug them and tell them we loved them, something that thousands of Americans would never be able to do to their own loved ones again.
But the skies of the world had been shut down and so in the short term there was no way out of America. Instead we decided to head down to the coast to Corpus Christi, possibly a mistake as this housed one of the largest military bases in the US! It was a ghost town and we actually struggled on our first night there to find somewhere to eat.
While we were still in America, we found out that Sarah, now fully trained and awaiting her formal contract with BA, had had it withdrawn and therefore no longer had a guaranteed job. For the next few months she went back to work at the Building Society.
But of course what happened to us was of no significance when you think about the families who suffered such catastrophic loss of loved ones on that day.
I'm sorry to bring another serious and thought provoking note to my blog but it was something that we will never forget and the date always brings back particular thoughts and feelings for both of us. Remember, if you haven't done it already today, tell someone you love them.
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