from the desk of tara hope…

on a day like today you can’t help but feel solemn, thankful and reflective. everyone has their own memories of the day when the USA changed forever….these are mine:

i remember so clearly where i was when i found out about the attack on our great nation. i was a senior and an office aid for our high school, so i was in the copy room making copies and a man from the church we shared the building with ran out into the hallway with terror in his eyes and pulled me into his office. a tv was on and i watched in amazement as a plane flew into a building in NYC. being young and naive i assumed the pilot had just made a horrible mistake and it was just a minor event, but soon i realized i was very wrong. as i went back into the school office to tell my supervisor mrs. simpson about what i had seen, she told me that the school was in a CODE RED situation and i needed to run around to all the teachers and let them know. our small school didnt have intercoms or pa systems so it was up to me to tell them the news. when i got to the classroom of my own grade i watched the 2nd tower get hit with my friends on the tv in the classroom. thats when i realized this was no accident. that evil had attacked our country.

later a schoolwide assembly was called, and it was a time of comforting my younger brothers, my friends who had parents who might have been on planes that day, and my best friend nicole and i sneaking into the school bathrooms to call our boyfriends in college, and our parents to ask if we should come home. the school projected the news on the sanctuary wall and we prayed for hours and hours. i remember being scared the attacks would happen all the way down the east coast. i remember thinking about the fact that my family and i had been in the twin towers, eating at the ‘windows on the world” restaurant just 35 days before.

NRCA always had a senior trip up the east coast, hitting major cities like DC, Philly, and NYC to see historical sites. we thought we might not be able to go that year, but we went on our trip and we were able to visit Ground Zero just months after the attack. i will never forget standing at Ground Zero, reading the notes people had left their love ones, crying with my best friends, and praying for our nation and our safety.

my parents have always taught me patriotism and to be proud of the USA and what our country stands for. i have never been more proud than when the country laid down its differences and banded together to help those hurting from this great loss.

i never guessed that about 8 years later i would be living in NYC, what i believe to be the greatest city in the greatest country in the world. i know that new yorkers say it takes at least 10 years of living there before you are a new yorker, but after 2 years of living there, i came to love that city as if i had been born there. i am proud to have lived there, and it makes me even more thankful that the city is not only still standing, but thriving.

i found some old pictures from our senior trip and our visit to ground zero.

i still believe what i wrote on the plywood walls of that crude memorial at Ground Zero. God still has His hand on this country and He still loves and cares about the people who were affected by the tragedy of September 11, 2001.