Ten years ago

I'm not sure in the archives of my blog if I've ever recounted my own "remember when" of September 11, 2001.  Since today is the ten year anniversary, I will do it now.
Ten years ago today, my twin boys were 20 days old.  Which meant I pretty much had not slept for about 20 days.  :-)  Early in the morning, around 4:30 AM when I felt like my eyeballs were actually going to melt out of my eye sockets if I did not get some sleep, I woke up Ben and asked him to take over with the babies so I could sleep for 3 hours before he had to go to school.  Just after 7:00, Ben came into the babies' room, where I had collapsed into unconsciousness on the bed, to wake me up and tell me I needed to come see something.  I wasn't very happy, I should have had at least another 30 minutes to sleep!  Couldn't he just tell me?  He said, "Two planes just crashed into the twin towers in New York."  This woke me up with a jolt.  I went out into the living room where the TV was on, and stood there with my mouth literally hanging open as I saw the images of the twin towers, smoke and flames billowing up into the sky.  I was watching, less than an hour later, as, before the eyes of millions of people around the country and world, the first tower fell.  I could not grasp the horror of the situation.  It did not seem at all to be real.  The horror kept on coming, though, when shortly after that the newscaster reported a plane crashing into the Pentagon, and then right at about 8:30 (Utah time), the second tower collapsed.
I remember that Ben got ready for school, drove down to BYU, and then came back a few minutes later-- classes had been canceled.  I remember the whole day, watching the TV, but desperately not wanting to watch any of it.  The images of people, covered with white dust from the collapsing buildings, running, screaming down the streets of New York chilled me to the bones.
I know I, and most other Americans, probably, expected to hear of many other attacks that terrible day.  I worried about my family in L.A., especially my dad who at that time worked in the tallest building in L.A.  I don't believe he ended up going to work that day.
I looked at my little babies, and wondered what kind of world they were going to inherit.  I thought of all the babies in New York and around the country who lost their dad or mom that day. 
I remember wondering how many thousands of people had died in those towers.  With the elevators down, I didn't know how many could possibly have escaped.  I remember hearing the estimates of loss of life up in the 10,000's.  I remember being relieved, and then being horrified at my relief that "only" 3,000 people died.
I remember the American flags that sprouted up like dandelions all over everywhere.  I remember the feeling of national unity and love.  And I remember going through my very first airport experience about 6 weeks later when I traveled from the Salt Lake City airport to LAX to visit my family for a couple of weeks, leaving Ben behind while he studied for and took an actuary exam.  My eyes popped at the gun-carrying soldiers in the airport.  Getting through security was something else.  I had 2 babies, a double stroller, a car seat, a huge diaper bag, and myself.  With no one to help.  The double stroller could not be folded down to go through the x-ray machine.  I remember arguing with the TSA agent about it, who was sure there must be a way to get that side-by-side double stroller to fit through an 18 inch wide space.  Not gonna happen.  I had been carrying one baby in the sling, the other was in the stroller, the diaper bag in the other seat, and the car seat balanced on top.  And then I had to somehow get the diaper bag and car seat through the x-ray machine, pick up the other baby (the other is still in the sling), one-handedly collapse the stroller, argue with the TSA agent about folding the stroller, and THEN they told me I couldn't carry the baby in the sling as I went through the metal detector.  You guys, my babies were 6 weeks old. First of all, even getting the baby out of the sling, and the sling over my head, all while carrying another baby, was something I still don't know how I managed to accomplish.  But once I did that, I was carrying these two babies who could not hold their heads steady.  Their poor little heads were flopping around, but I had no extra hands to support their heads!  It was really awful.  I was so furious at the security people for making me go through this absurdity.  I finally did get through security, with both babies screaming their hearts out, and managed to get everything assembled back together for the walk to the gate.  And yes, that *was* a very fun trip, flying alone with two newborn infants who were traumatized and out of their routine.  And I'm sure all of the people sitting around me had a very fun trip as well.  :-)
But mostly, I was, and still am, furious at those 19 people who took the lives of so many people, ruined the lives of thousands of others, and have disrupted the lives of the countless millions who have since had to live with the repercussions of that one day.  Every time I go through airport security, I am astounded that 19 individuals could have wrought such change on our whole world. 
Today, I am sorry that we have not been able to maintain the national unity and love that we all felt for those few months after the attacks.  I am sorry that some people have not learned the lessons from that day that I wish they had.  But mostly, today, I pray for the families of all those people who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.