Dear Jake & Amelia,

Today the world changed. 

All the news stations showed live footage of the  World Trade Center buildings. Both were burning. Two commercial airliners had been hijacked and flown into them, disappearing into the towers. The first plane penetrated close to the top. The second plane crashed into the other tower slightly lower, announcing that the first was no accident. Gray smoke billowed out, billowed and billowed and billowed. 

We were stunned. It didn't seem real. 

The news media struggled to learn what had happened. Conflicting, confusing information came in. Where had the planes originated? Where they were headed? Reports of other bomb scares. Then a plane crashed into the Pentagon. The Pentagon was burning. Another plane was down somewhere in Pennsylvania. 

As we watched, one tower collapsed. 
Then the second tower collapsed. 

A silent scream. 

The sound waves vibrating across the country, the dust billowing. The buildings collapsed as if imploded. All the screams of all those people. The office workers, the EMT's, the rescue workers, the police, the firefighters, tiny and frail in among the concrete, the steel, the gray dust, the flames, the smoke, the heat causing the floor slabs to separate from their support. The raw horror.

Driving east, we saw American flags flying everywhere. Town after town, flags lined small town streets. They were on cars, trucks, houses, porches, barns, stores, construction cranes, bridges, and telephone poles. Flags were everywhere. 

Nancy & Peter

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