Like the older generation say they always remember where they where when JFK was shot or when Diana, Princess of Wales died in a tragic car crash I can vividly remember where I was at the time; Asda in Wigan!
I'd finished university only a couple of months before and lets just say I was "between jobs." I remember coming off the home and leisure department to go on my break when it was all over the TV in the canteen.
No one could actually believe that history was unfolding before our very eyes. My first thought was that it was the start of world war three and the second was that we were all under attack. All I wanted to do was to finish my shift and get home to see my loved ones. To hug them. To kiss them and to never leave their side... But alas I had to wait until my shift was over.
Fast forward to a year later and I would actually find myself stood at the very site where all those innocent people lost their lives.
It was such an eerie and bizarre experience. There was still dust everywhere and a dull lifeless feel about the place. But the site that stuck in my mind the most wasn't the huge gap that now existed where the twin towers once stood. It was the little church just round the corner that still had posters, firemens hats, pictures and even a random canoe plastered all over and around it. Almost like a make shift memorial filled with desperation that somehow... Somewhere someone would find what they were looking for. As helpless as it seemed what else could be done in such a desperate situation.
What would you do?
Today I have been reflecting on this memory of that fateful day but I'm also thinking ahead to the future and hope that my unborn child - whose sex I will know within the next few days - doesn't grow up in a world full of fear and terror but instead is happy and safe.
I have also decided that one day I will take my precious loved one to that very site so that too can reflect on the fragility of life and the fact that it does go on after death.
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