Another 9/11 remembered

Two years to the day after that fateful September morn in 2001 I and a small contingent of other Canadian Jersey people were in an unusual spot. After a very long overnight flight across continents we were shuttling between New York City's major airports LaGuardia and JFK. We had spent the first ten days of September 2001 in the fascinating, captivating, scenic and Jersey- rich country of South Africa. Our mission had been all about attending the annual council meetings and associated tours of the World Jersey Cattle Bureau. Now, jet-lagged and overflowing with precious and happy memories we were most of the way home to our final air destination of Toronto, Ontario.

Just as on that sunny, bright Tuesday morning in 2001 New York was bathed in sunlight and hope for a new day or activity and productivity. Some things are simply too ironic. Sometime after 8:30 a.m. we were making our way through another security check. Just as we got close I was standing right beside a security agent. I was so close that I could hear him say softly, with definite solemnity and a tinge of sadness in his voice into a microphone on his shoulder: "8:46 a.m.". And then, I instantly recalled. That was the moment that that the first hi-jacked plane hit the first tower at the World Trade Center. And you could almost "hear silence descend" over the bustling terminal. For a moment frozen in time we were cast into a sea of deep reflection on lives lost in an instant, hopes dashed, families torn asunder, hatreds unravelling but bravery and heroism and leadership coming to the fore too, fear rising, and so many questions asked some never to be answered.

Then on we went, somehow secure in the knowledge that our plane would wing its way across New York State, over Lake Ontario and safely on to Toronto.

This tiny instant provided yet another door of insight into a landmark and horrid moment in the history of the world, North America in particular but as it turns out the whole world. Seven, and nine, years later it is good that we recall both moments and the day that heroism and bravery took their rightful place and said no to terrorism and yes to life after our lives had taken a body blow of gigantic proportions!

Yes, we remember, so clearly.