Monday

Tomorrow is a big step toward fixing my life. I can't say much beyond that, but this year we're going for hope on Sept. 11.

Of course, that year the day started so hopefully too...I had a patient who I had been working hard to help with something and a solution had finally occurred to me. I needed to pick up a couple things at the store so I did. I was so thrilled to get to work to go show the patient what I had discovered.

I got to work at about 9:00 sharp. I hadn't turned the radio on in the car so I didn't hear any news. When I got to work someone met me at the door begging "what did you hear? What does the news say?" with such pain in her voice. I was totally clueless.

We were in a basement and radios and televisions didn't work there. All day we got snippets of news when we went upstairs for a moment or 2. So much of it was wrong and we didn't catch on to all corrections. I was in a nurses station when I heard a gasp and watched tower 2 fall. It hadn't hit anyone that so many people were still in there yet. I remember how it was impossible to figure out what rumors were real because nothing sounded beyond the realm of reality in light of what we knew had occurred.

Later in the day I had to do a home health visit. I lived near an airport and there was never a time that several planes were not visible, but that day there were none. That's the most real memory to me, that clear blue sky that week without a single plane for days.

That week it seemed life was on hold. Tomorrow I'm taking tiny step one in removing my own life from hold. Maybe it's symbolic?