Saturday, August 21, 2010

30-Day Song Challenge Day 4

Well, I have made it to day 4. I'm so glad the Krystal's Kitsch created this challenge!

For today--a song that makes me sad. This is easy. I remember the first time I heard this song I am about to talk about. I'll even get to share some more about me.

My best friend, Martin, played an album for me I did not do. I had only heard a little about Alan Jackson, and Martin asked if I had heard his songs? I said I didn't really know. So he played his greatest hits album. It came to the song "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?"

I realized right away that this song was about 9/11. As I listened to the words, I became really emotional. It was all I could do to hold back the tears. I will never forget 9/11 as long as I live. And I remember some things that happened in my marriage that were probably some clues that Paul (my then-husband) had some issues.

I was a music teacher at a Christian school down in Fort Worth, Texas. We began to hear the updates from our administrator. I remember trying to get on the internet, and it was jammed. I wanted to find out what was going on. I remember going into my first grade class that morning, and the kids were scared that a plane was going to crash into the school. When Alan Jackson sings about "teaching a class full of innocent children," I almost always lose it even still.

Our administrator finally made the decision to cancel school for the remainder of the day. I called Paul, and he had heard about it from our next-door neighbor. He came and picked me up, and I did nothing but watch the news the rest of the day.

As we as a nation recovered from the shock of it all, I remember remarking how horrible it was that these terrorists had killed innocent people. I intimated that I was so glad that we were going after the terrorists.

Then Paul shocked me. He said something about not thinking that 9/11 was all that bad and that the terrorists shouldn't really have to pay for their horrible deeds. He thought people had blown everything out of proportion. He refused to acknowledge that anything terrible happened. I was horrified. Sure, we had just come back from a missions trip to Yemen a couple years before, and I didn't think all Arab people were terrorists and should be punished, but the people who did this needed to pay for their crimes! We were right in hunting down Osama Bin Laden.

After I heard the song, Martin noticed I was crying. He asked me why. He said it was only a song. I explained to him why it affected me so strongly. And it still does. I don't think I'll ever go through a listening of this song without remembering that day vividly and remembering the way Paul acted. And what he said. I should have seen it, but I wasn't ready to see his issues yet. I don't think I could have done anything about them back then.

Anyway, here's the song that makes me cry.

2 comments:

  1. This is soooo moving. I have never heard it before. Thanks for posting it. I typically turn on the TV 2 minutes before I leave for work to see if I need an umbrella or coat. On that day when I turned on the TV Pres. Bush made his statement that we were victims of a terrorist attack. I wasn't sure if I should go to work but decided that co-workers who commute might not make it in so I went to work. As I walked to work commuters had their blackberries on and we heard the news of the Pentagon bombing. While at work, alot of us were standing around a 9 inch tv someone had in their office and saw the buildings fall. 2 hours after I got to work my employer evacuated the building and I went home. Just minutes before, I saw the state police escorting the constitional officers to a helicopter. All of them went in a different direction. We were told that there was a hijacked plane headed for Chicago and that the downtown area where I live was being evacuated. I was impressed that the state police were not afraid as they did their job. When I arrived back home there were cops in the lobby telling me that I could not stay more than 20 minutes, that they were knocking on every door to determine who was still in the building. I went upstairs, packed the cats in a carrier and put all of my negatives from 50 years of photographs in a gym bag and went to the lobby waiting to be evacuated again. 5 minutes later it was announced that all of the planes had been grounded. The terrorist target #3 in Chicago is the highrise next to my condo. While I had only been awake for 3 hours, when I went back up to my unit, I fell asleep for 5 hours. I was so emotionally exhausted from evacuations.

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  2. Reading this comment is moving as well. I think it is very good to remember what happened that day. May we never forget! I think we sometimes become so complacent and think it could never happen again. I truly ten to think that something worse could happen than 9/11 if we don't learn from that day.

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