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My colleague and I were headed on a 2-day session at our client's in remote western Maryland. We had been there several times before, but this time, I looked on the map to see if there might be a better route. Should we cut west on the Pennsylvania turnpike then head south? or should we head south then head west along a Maryland highway as we usually do?
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In the end, Vince and I decided to take the usual route across Maryland. We left early in the morning and we were busy talking about our families, the clients and other things that you typically share with a liked team member.
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My cell phone rang as we were driving in the beautiful mountains of Route 68. My secretary called in a panicked voice asking if I had spoken with my husband. My heart started pounding and my head began to feel warm. My immediate thought was that something had happened with our family. She went on to explain in a breathy voice that America was being attacked. We had to drive quite awhile before we came upon a motel. We stopped to see what we could find out. The few patrons were already grouped around the lobby tv set and we watched, unbelieving, as we see in real time as the South tower is hit.
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We had no choice but to keep going to our destination, a hospital. When we got to the parking lot, Vince and I both looking to the same Savior, against all professional tradition, sat in the office car, in our client's parking lot and prayed.
We found out that this facility was the third tier in the line of care in cases of catastrophic situations. By this time, the Pentagon was hit and there were conflicting reports about Flight 93. We started our meeting, which was to last 2 days, knowing that at any time, helicoptors and ambulances might be coming with the casualties from the Pentagon or Shanksville. We continued our meeting, heavy hearted, with the visions of the tower hovering in our hearts.
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As the hours wore on into the late afternoon, with no radio contact, no helicoptors, no ambulances, we knew what that meant. Our clients, nurses trained in emergency preparedness, were frank. Despite the number of people that would have been injured, there weren't enough survivors for their hospital to be needed. We knew it was bleak news.
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At the end of our sessions, Vince and I each headed to our hotel room. We each sat in our own room, feeling alone, feeling helpless, lost, and feeling like never before, a deep primal need to be with our families. We met the next morning for breakfast, neither one of us having slept well and continued our meetings. I don't know how we did it. We were there and we had to keep going.
As we drove back across Maryland, and as the news of the Shanksville tragedy became clearer, we realized that had we driven across Pennsylvania the morning before, instead of the route we took, we probably would have seen a plane in the sky, plummeting down toward an empty field.
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I know that how I was touched is nothing compared to what others lived...are living through. But I was touched, as was every other in our country. And, it is nothing compared to people who live with this violence every day. They leave their family in the morning, not knowing if they'll come back with a limb missing, tortured for apparently no reason, or if they'll come home at all.
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I have no conclusion to this story I've shared. How can there be? It is just my heart, poured out for the sadness and evil in this world.
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