Mine always starts with…. Kylie had pink eye, and my sister was in NYC on her honey moon.

It wasn’t until this morning that I realized that my then-2-year-old really has no idea what happened that day.

My sister got married on 9/8, and they flew to New York as a layover destination for their Hawaiian Honeymoon.  The details are sketchy, but from what I remember, they were some of the last people to tour the World Trade Center on the night of 9/10/01.  The next morning, my brother-in-law went down to get breakfast, when the first plane hit.  They felt the building shake and watched it all unfold.

Andy was at work, and I was getting ready for work when I discovered that Kylie had pink eye.  I called him to come home, and while waiting for him, I was watching the Early Show when the first plane hit.

My parents were in Tennessee on a traveling vacation, and it took us several hours to get in touch with my sister.

From what we all understood was that they weren’t going to the Trade Center until the morning of 9/11 before their flight.  We thought they were gone, or possibly some of the “jumpers” we’d been watching on TV.

I went in to work, and I spent the day looking at the horrific photos that were congesting the internet.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of them, or the news.  I was worried about my sister and her new husband.  They were eventually able to call us, and we could not get in touch with them because (we never would have thought this) cell towers were jammed and over capacity.

My dad is a very determined man, and at this point, nothing was going to get in his way.  He was ready to drive to NYC to find my sister and brother-in-law and bring them home.  Except….  no one was being let in, or out, of NYC.

Kim and Sam ended up staying at a friend’s house for the duration of their honeymoon on Long Island, I do believe.  There were no flights – especially not to Hawaii, and let’s face it, flying wasn’t on the forefront of everyone’s mind at that time.

All that to say… this morning, I was briefly explaining things to Kylie, on the way to school, and she kept asking so many questions.. “who did it?”, “why did they do it?”, “how many people were killed?”    I was just shocked that #1, I hadn’t told her any of this before, and #2, she hadn’t learned it in school.  She’s 12 years old!!

This weekend, I plan to talk to her more in depth about it, because I still tear up when I talk about it (made it hard while driving), especially Flight 93 where the heroic passengers took down the plane to save even more people.

Although we did not personally lose anyone on that day, ten years later, we still think about the families who lost everything.

What is your 9/11 story?