Where were you that September Morning?

Of all our genres of American music Country Music often best reflects life. It is more than just songs about unrequited love, the loss of one's old pickup truck or juke boxes and bars. As we all reflect on 9/11/01, I think Alan Jackson said it best. "Where were you when the world stopped turnin' that September day?"

I remember I was standing in the judge's chamber's galley watching the 2nd plane hit the towers. But more importantly, I remember where I was the night before. Little did I know that my birthday dinner that night with my immediate family was the end of our innocence. Much like 12/7 and Pearl Harbor, 9/11 is an indelible memory we will live with for generations to come.

Just like anyone alive at the time remembers where they were when they learned that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and, then years later, that president Kennedy had been shot, I clearly remember the dinner that night. One of our daughter's announced that she had been accepted into the Duke TIP program and my husband retold some humorous conversation he had at work. Both these, and other parts of the evening, come to mind. I had no way of foreseeing that that dinner was the end of life as we knew it. 

As a child, I can remember both of my parents telling me their memories of both 12/7/41 and 11/22/63. I never thought I would have my "Pearl Harbor" moment. The scene of the smoke billowing from those 2 buildings into that brilliant blue September sky is an indelible memory. The stories of families who lost one or more loved ones in New York, Pennsylvania or DC, are still haunting.

There were almost 3000 families directly effected by the events of that day (and 1000's more due to the casualties of the war that followed). There was an understandable  outrage. But since the spring of 2020, in our country alone, we are losing an average of 1500 souls a day due to this pandemic. In my mind it is another 9/11 moment, just one we have lived in a slow rolling nightmare for almost 18 months as opposed to the scary hours of one morning. Let us keep this in mind. 

In 2001 we all united, the red and the blue together, almost into a shade of purple, to revenge this assault on our fellow citizens. Everyone was appalled at the idea of this attack and loss of life. This country was joined together to ensure we never experienced such an incursion again. Yet, 20 years later we cannot unite behind the loss of over 659,000 of our fellow citizens, when we have the ability to stop this madness. True, a terrorist attack on our country and the effects of an international pandemic can be seen as 2 different things. But truly are they?