9/11

Today is the 10th anniversary of 9/11...for my generation possibly the day in our lives in which we were stopped in our tracks with the  realization that life as we knew it would never quite be the same.  Much as my mother-in-law remembers the day President Kennedy was shot...we remember where we were and what we were doing at the moment in time in which terror became a part of our daily vocabulary. 

Yesterday Rich and I participated in the Panama City Beach Fire Rescue 9 - 11 Memorial Stair Climb.  It took place at a condo on the beach.  In honour of those firefighters  who lost their lives in the line of duty on 9-11 we climbed 110 flights of stairs (We did 66 flights going up and 44 coming down, taking the elevator down between the first and second flight).  That morning in the car all pumped up with coffee and a Dunkin Donut I told Rich "I honestly don't think I can do 110 flights...but I will do 50 for sure." 

I don't know what I expected...but it wasn't the American flag hanging in all her glory from the ladder of a fire truck...and it wasn't firefighters in full uniform...some from as far away as Hoover, Alabama... and it wasn't small children jumping up and down with excitement...and it definitely wasn't a 70 year old man with a knee brace.  And so I did what I was sure I couldn't do.

"Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all."  Ecclesiastes 9:11