September 11

I was in a rental house in Boise ID.  I was fighting anger, hurt, and contemplating a separation from my first husband.  I needed a break.  I thought that I would escape...so I turned on the TV.  After about 6 minutes of watching Good Morning America...my heart, my lungs, and my brain was stunned.  My escape was shattered as another horrifying reality was setting into my conscience.  I took it as a sign.  I remember screaming at my former husband that he better straighten up because he was running out of time.  The rest of the day I sat on the couch hugged my kids, play blocks, colored, ran around with them...I created a safe place for them and made sure that they felt loved.

For two straight weeks following that tragic day, I would look to the sky and pray that we would be safe for one more hour, day, week, month, and hopefully a year.  We needed more time to fix the mess (our marriage, our business, and our finances) we were in.  We needed more time to do this, but I felt a prick of pain that I felt could never be healed.  Almost every once every hour we would hear the reassuring engine roar of F-16's from the Air force Base near Mountain Home.  Time began to move slowly and steadily after that.  But the fear of loosing everything: my family, my way of life, my freedom was a haunting echo that never truly left.  Kellis was 3, Garrett was 23 months old, and Isaac was six months old and I now my blessed America was no longer safe.  That is a day that I will never forget.