It’s hard to believe that it can be 5 years ago. So much of it seems like it’s only been a few months. The words of my Great-Aunt, Letha Wilcox ring in my head, “And it came to pass, not to stay.”

I was living in Idaho on that fateful day terrorists attacked. We had just returned home from a trip to New York City a few months previous. On that trip we took the elevator to the 110th story of the south tower to the observation deck. It was like nothing I’d ever seen. It was amazing. Although we didn’t know it at the time, our timing was impeccable. There were no clouds to distort our view, no long lines to reach the top – nothing but clear skies and skyscrapers as far as the eye could see. It was a once in a lifetime experience -an experience on the brink of extinction, though no one would ever have dreamed that possible.

It was frustrating being surrounded by so many natives to our rural Idaho community. They had no ties, connections or experiences with NYC. To them this was just a sad thing. I couldn’t share with them how tragic it was, how majestic that city is or amazing those towers were because they’d never experienced it. Experience is the only true teacher. So my husband and I sat glued to the TV for half the day watching things unfold. It was as if the entire world had grown quiet and time had become suspended for those first few hours after the initial attack. The shock and horror were almost tangible.

At a personal level, the images I saw on my screen struck a deep and resounding chord in my heart. I was recovering from a three month illness that came without warning and with a vengeance. It started with a trip to the ER and few days at the hospital. It grew into daily visits to the doctor, hundreds of tests, trips to the University of Utah to be seen by specialists and a full month of rehabilitation in physical therapy. No one knew what it was. I spent nearly three months wondering if tomorrow would come or if I’d be able to walk again. Now the lives of so many were experiencing so many of the same horrible emotions and uncertainty.

Grief and devastation ran rampant over the next 24 hours. It paralleled so closely my own personal circumstances. I was still reeling when my husband dropped the next big bombshell the very next day. All of his outsourced, out of state contracts decided to invoke force majeure. Although his portions of the contracts were fulfilled, he would now never see the full dues agreed upon for his services. In the height of our greatest financial distress with all my medical bills, (self employment insurance stinks!) we now had no income. In an instant everything changed. Security was replaced with doubt, peace with fear.

I replayed the scenes in my mind of the towers crashing to the ground. They symbolized exactly how things felt in my own life. I wondered if we could ever possibly recover from the devastation and ruin that surrounded us.

Six months later a job was finally secured in another state. The rebuilding was long and hard. There were days when I would sit in tears praying for miracles. And days when I’d sit in tears because miracles came. Bankruptcy was never an option and I found great satisfaction knowing that we survived two of the top three reasons most common to this plight: major medical bills, loss of income and divorce. In the end, the words of my Great Aunt rang true: “And it came to pass, not to stay.”

It has come to pass, but I will never forget. And neither will millions of other Americans who united in hope and rebuilding after that tragic day. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. They’re right.

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