Where were you when the world stopped turning

Nine years ago today, my starkest memory is of being huddled in my downtown DC apartment waiting for the unaccounted plane to crash into the big, white house four blocks away from me. And trying to get a phone line to call my mother.

Later, I went to the Front Page to gather with the other DC loners who didn't have family and were, like me, trapped inside the city center. We silently watched the news and patted the shoulders of complete strangers and wondered what it all meant.

I do not, and cannot, know what it was like for those in New York who went through much worse that day.

But I can say this: for me, it was hell. It was terrifying and it was life-changing.

And I did not then, and do not now, hold hate in my heart for the people who happen to follow the same religion as those who committed these acts.

None of us did that day. None of us were hating anyone. We were patching together the shreds of hope and compassion our frazzled nerves still had left, and we didn't have the time to hate anyone.

I, for one, still don't.