Where Were You? {Repost}

Living Room, Santa Constancia house, Fortaleza

Greyson, later in 2002

I remember like it was just last week.  I was in the living room of our house on Santa Constancia in Fortaleza, the only house we ever bought and was truly ours.  I was cleaning up after breakfast and getting some off to school and morning activities.  The phone rang.  It was a church member.  It was odd because it was not a person who had a phone and not someone who called frequently at all.  The man said I should get off the phone, sit down and turn on my television.  He repeated the sit down part at least once and said to hurry, something was happening.

I did what he said.  When I realized what was going on, in spite of my fears, I decided to call the children as I knew this would be an important moment in their lives even though they were so small and might not remember the details.  It never dawned on me at that time that it could be bad for children to know.  It just seemed like it was such a historical day even if it was overwhelming and sad.

In the days and weeks after friends would stop us on the street to ask if all our family in the States were okay.  Neighbors would call us to come into their homes to watch news broadcasts from around the world with their big satellite dishes.  Church people prayed and so did we.