Remembering 9/11: Office of the Dead; #Wherewereyou

From a couple of years ago, a podcast I made praying the Office of the Dead for the victims of 9/11 and all who die by means of terrorism.

Over at Twitter, there is a hashtag: #Wherewereyou

Where was I? My husband was in the air, on his way to Atlanta, and in those first awful minutes when we didn’t know what planes were where…awful. When we learned which flights were involved I called the kids schools and asked them to please let my sons know their dad’s plane wasn’t one of them.

My eeriest memory of the day, though, was after the noon hour, when I had to get away from the set and went to the store for supplies — because we live on an island, and the bridges and tunnels were closed. The store had put the radio on, and we customers wandered the aisles like ghosts. I watched a woman put tomatoes in a bag, distractedly and then just lay them down and walk away.

And as I packed the car I looked up at the incredibly blue, crystalline sky, and it was so awfully empty and silent. Even the birds did not fly. An oppressive, terrible beauty.

Where were you?

UPDATE:
A nice little story about the difficulty of lighting a candle at the WTC, when Pope Benedict prayed there.

And my thoughts on that day: Benedict, a Shepherd who is Led