September 11th: Baby Footprints and Bodies Fall: Ten Years After the Tragedy I Still Wonder: Where Did the Souls Go?

by Amber Cole

September 11 Baby Footprints and Bodies FallingTen Years After the Tragedy I Still Where Did the Souls Go?Amber Cole On the evening of Monday, September 10, 2011, I forced myself to complete a task that I'd been putting off for a few capturing my infant son's footprints in the Plaster of Paris-type alabaster goo that resided within a tin designed to contain memories.I wrote 9/11/01 inside the lid of the keepsake, not knowing that the day would become the type that lives on in infamy -- so horrendous that it would never need a year attached to it again.Tuesday morning I awoke in our peaceful suburb of Fairfield, California, and flipped on the TV.Prince -- our big and goofy male Rottweiler -- had relieved himself on the fine beige carpeting in our great room, much to the chagrin of my husband, who was delayed from work when he stopped to clean up the mess.It was the first of many "delays" on September 11th...I may not understand why such a tragedy occurred that day, but I do know that "accident" from our dog was not unplanned in the heavenly realm. It was one of untold millions of little delays around the country, with tales of folks who inexplicably experienced odd things that kept them from work that fate-filled day.It gave me time enough to scope out the strange view of a high-rise on fire that a helicopter circled around in the sky.Is that the Sears Tower? I thought to myself, thinking at first of the renamed Willis Tower in my Chicago hometown.But no, as the helicopter circled I saw a matching tower, and then I realized it was those famous New York "Twin Towers" landmarks I'd heard so much about and seen in movies and such."Please don't go to work," I begged my husband.Chris, like many Americans, didn't get the severity of situation when the first plane hit. Many -- especially those of us just greeting the day way out on the West Coast -- may have assumed that a small commuter plane had hit the building with minor damages.By the time the second and third and fourth planes had crashed, we knew how severe the day had become."We're going to war," I said as soon as I learned about the Pentagon being hit.I worried about a 5th plane coming to attack the Golden Gate Bridge, a landmark that sat a mere five miles south of where my husband worked in San Rafael.He acquiesced to my fears and stayed home.Thankfully, there was no fifth plane -- but horrifically, many people had lost their lives and loved ones so tragically.

6 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 6, 2014