Ten years ago...

I've been thinking all week about this day. How can you not? It's all over the news, the papers, everyone's talking about it and for the most part, I try to ignore the coverage. That's not unAmerican, really, it's anything but in my eyes.

Ten years ago today I was a grad student living with two other students in an apartment in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I didn't have Tuesday morning classes so I was home studying. I was alone but that didn't last long. By the end of the afternoon my apartment was full of friends. That's one thing I remember so well, how connected I felt after all of it happened. So close to others. We made tacos and ate together, watching television. We watched way too much television that September.

I remember an email I received shortly after the towers fell, from a cousin in Canada. She'd tried calling and couldn't get through to any of the family here in the states. So she emailed and said she was thinking of us and loved us all. I remember being more scared after getting that email than I was after learning what had happened. Someone couldn't call me, because of the attacks. It was hard to process that.

I remember driving to Office Max to tell my roommate what was going on, that her dad was being evacuated from a building in Chicago. I remember long hours on that brown couch in our living room. I remember classes being canceled and no one really noticing.

But even more so I remember what happened after that day.

We gathered at the Wesley Foundation on campus in droves; to pray, to worship, but mostly to try and make sense of it all. We had a wonderful pastor who not only counseled us but educated us, helping us to understand that this was not the act of a people of faith but an act of madmen. I will be forever grateful for learning the difference.

We talked about what had and was happening in our classes. I was teaching undergraduate communication at the time and I remember running into one of my favorite professors in the hall on September 12th, before classes started up again. We looked at each other and I asked him what to do, how to teach in this environment. He said he had no idea. For a moment, we were equals, we were colleagues who just needed to get through the day and get back to our families and our couches and our televisions.

And then something happened. The calendar turned a few pages and it was Saturday, just four short days later. And just as planned months before, my parents and some members of my extended family arrived in town. We toured campus, we went out to lunch, and then we watched a performance of "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" at Miller auditorium. And that was when I knew, despite everything that had transpired, and everything that was to come, somehow it would all be okay.

I still believe that today. Our country is at war, yes, but we've been at war for much of our history. Our country is as secure as the wonderful people who protect us can make it. I sleep in a bed at night, and though I do frequently hear helicopters in my lovely L.A. neighborhood, I don't hear fighting and bombing and I am not afraid for my life. I am thankful. I am thankful that I remember, that I can pray for our country's people and the people of the world, and I am thankful I can go out and live my life. And that is exactly what I will do today.