TEN YEARS…..I remember as a small child every anniversary of Pearl Harbor my Granddaddy Holt would tell me the story of where he was the day they bombed Pearl Harbor. “Becki I was delivering out at Reese Air Base for the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe. I had pulled on base and got off the train as some young man came running up and said, ‘ we can’t unload you right now Clarence, they bombed Pearl Harbor!!!’ I had to sit there with that train for hours.” “Bec I hope that you never experience anything that leaves that kind of mark on you.” I hate that he had to be effected that way, but I remember him telling me about it like it was yesterday so it effected me too. He taught me so much about pride in my country, pride in myself and what love was all about.
So there comes a point in my life that effects me deeply, 9.11.2001. I had awakened early, put Kristen on the bus to school and was sitting in our den watching the news and talking to Mom. Mom had come to Brownwood to stay with Daddy that had just opened the Honey Do Shop. They didn’t have any television at the time (Brownwood only got Abilene and San Angelo stations and only if you had a honking antenna) and they were still not very hip on the internet yet. I was watching a news cast live from the street in NYC. They panned to the plane hitting the tower. I am telling Mom what I am seeing and we are talking about it. A short time earlier a small plane had hit a building in NYC and we were talking about the bad timing and that there would be a third. As the second plane hit. I remember the fear in my Mom’s voice. I remember her promise to me. “Rebecca Jean, I will get to you one way or another. I don’t know how I will have to travel but if we go to war and I can’t drive there, I will get there. I know a few people down here with horses, if I have to I will come for you and Kristen on horse back.” I remember sitting there in shock but thinking to myself, ‘my little momma is gonna steal a horse and ride 200 miles. OMG’ I told her not to even think about it that it would be easier to get Kris and I to them. I remember the days following being out in the cotton fields and there being NO air traffic. How unsettling that in itself was. If you did see a plane it was military and it made you wonder what was going on. There was military planes from all over the world sitting on the tarmac at the Lubbock airport. I remember taking Kristen out there to see the big Russian air plane that was built to put out oil field fires.
Ten years later…….. what a life time has passed in the past 10 years. Mary Helen, Grandma, and Mother are gone now, as well as many other friends and relatives. Kristen has turned into a wonderful young woman. She has graduated high school, been off to New Orleans to go to college, fallen in love and married. I have been in business, moved from Slaton to Bangs. I have wrestled with religion and had my faith shaken to its very core. I have found my path and actually have plans for a future time. Daddy ran his business that was new until we lost mother and now he does everything he can to help me. I have watched as his health deteriorates, I have watched as John’s health has failed so much. I have reunited with old friends and made new, I have found love and found happiness. I have seen many changes in our country and in this world in those 10 years. New laws, the war, young people that I actually know have gone to war and life continues. How amazing that it lives on in our hearts that we could actually be attacked but some things will carry on just as before………
I too pray that Kristen never has anything effect her like 9.11. has me.
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