9/11 -- 8 years later..

I'll never forget the crisp fall day.

Hubby sleeping, I sat down to grade -- even then I was teaching (adjunct) and already had grading and class prep.

That was the semester I had Tuesdays off -- no classes to teach or take. A whole day to work at home.

I was teaching the usual assortment some combination of critical thinking, intro and ethics -- at an assortment of colleges in the Omaha area.

I happened to flip on the TV --just in time to see the second plane go in via the live camera feed.

I felt the world divide into "before" and "after" in a way that reminded me of the before/after divide I'd felt when my dad died years before. Since then I've had two more before/after divides... at the loss of my sister and my cancer adventure. The difference with 9/11 is that the whole country and perhaps the whole world felt it too.

Since then I've formulated and written a dissertation on the ethics of warfare. I've become more aware than ever that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were unjust. I didn't need a dissertation to teach me that -- just imagining what it had to have been like to be in the upper floors of the World Trade Center is enough.

In July we went to New York City for the first time. We stayed in a room that used to look at the middle floors of the WTC, and now looks down into Ground Zero. Forever I'll think of NYC as a brave and amazing city.

Tuesday I sent my dissertation to Dr. Advisor -- today we remember 9/11. Perhaps I should have waited until today to mail it -- maybe he'll get it today and read it thinking back 8 years.