Remembering 9/11

I was sleeping in a friend's house on 9/11, having just attended the wedding of another dear friend, when my friend's mom called to wake us up to tell us the awful news. We were supposed to get on a return plane to Dallas that day. I remember sitting on my friend's bed and later on her couch, in disbelief, tears following tears for most of the day. Jerry and I stayed in Denver for, I believe, five days longer than planned. I went back to the Rocky Mountain News to work for a few of those days … it was all I knew how to do in times like this, with news like this. It helped. But one memory shines through from that time: Upon returning home on a plane a few days after the horror, I felt like everyone on that plane was somehow bonded. We all agreed before takeoff that, should something bad happen, we'd all open up a major can of whoop-ass together. We sat next to a woman in her 80s who was on her way to South America for volunteer work. She also pledged to smack the hell out of anyone who might be on the plane to do us harm, and I liked her immediately. She told us she would spend the night in the airport, on the floor, waiting for her next plane. No way, I thought. We took her home with us, and she spent the night and took us out to breakfast the next morning. We kept in touch for a couple years after that, but have since lost touch. I think everyone on that plane that day gave each other a little piece of returned faith in humanity. Ten years later, I miss that feeling of being in this together, for better or for much, much worse. Wish we could get a bit of that back.