You hurled the shard of betrayal you thought a knife 
You were too weak to wield, 
You believed you’d gained the upper hand. 
Instead, you exposed the true nature of your soul. 
You seek compassion where none was given. 
The well ran dry that very day.

Seventeen Years Ago

Seventeen years ago, my phone rang. It was too early for someone to call, so I knew there was some kind of emergency. I picked up expecting to hear a family member's voice. Instead, it was one of the MOMS Club moms. Her voice was loud and panicked.
"Have you seen the news?"
"I haven't," I said, and turned the TV on.

"We're at war," she screeched.

To be honest, my first reaction was that she was overreacting. In the next few minutes I came to the heart-wrenching realization that while what was happening might not be an act of war, it was an act of terrorism, and the events of the day would forever change my world and that of my family.

I watched in horror as a plane hit the second tower, struggling to make sense of what was happening at the same time the morning news anchors were doing the same thing.

I remember the rest of the day vividly. I called my mother first, and then the two moms from the club who I knew were or had been flight attendants. One, crying, told me that had been her route when she worked for American Airlines, but worse, her husband was traveling and she hadn't been able to reach him. She called back later to say her husband was safe in Florida.

I don't remember the details of the second call, only that the other mom was trying to find out who of her colleagues had been on the planes.

The world went eerily silent. Planes were grounded that usually flew over our house by the hour. Cars in the neighborhood that routinely pulled out of driveways and garages carrying their occupants to work, remained immobile. The only sounds were of ringing phones and the news reports that I watched all day.

I had a meeting scheduled that I expected to be cancelled, but the client insisted we still meet. She and the other attendees came to my house, but after thirty minutes of all of us being too stunned to function, she called the meeting a waste of time and left.

Frank was two years old. The lullabies I sang to him changed that night. Instead of Rockabye Baby, I sang God Bless America, the Star Spangled Banner, and America the Beautiful.

In the days that followed, I watched the news coverage of people looking for their loved ones. The signs they held, the flowers they left, the tears they shed, and cried right along with them.

On September 17, I had a surprise party planned for Doug's fortieth birthday. I told him about it and we both agreed it would be best to cancel. I called the invitees who, one by one, told me they disagreed. Many said we needed to be together, to celebrate life, and to not allow the terrorists to "win."

We held the party. It wasn't until the last minute that we knew whether his brother would be able to fly in for it from San Francisco, but he did.

We celebrated life that night. We held our children and each other close, and no one mentioned the events of the week. They were still there, in the back of our minds and at the front of our hearts, but we let love rise to the surface instead of hate.

Each year, my brain processes through how I felt that morning, and how I've felt every year since. Every year I watch the tributes, and every year I cry.

My grandparents never forgot December 7, 1941, the day President Franklin Roosevelt called, "a date which will live in infamy." On that day, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. The bombing killed more than 2,300 Americans.

September 11, 2001 is also a date that will live in infamy; almost three thousand people died that day or in the days that followed, because of the attack. More than 18,000 people are still suffering from illnesses linked to the dust.

I will never forget.