9/11 Above the Ashes

I am sure that most everyone remembers exactly where they were on that fateful day.  I do, I was at home, my husband had just left for work, and I was getting ready to start my day, rest a bit and then go to work that night at the hospital. My husband and I had just returned from a 10 day road trip. We had gone to the East coast.  I was to return to work that night.  My husband called me from the car at 8:50 am and told me to turn the T.V. on. A plane hit a building in New York. What?, I thought, are they making a movie?  I quickly turned on the TV and watched in horror as the second plane hit.  I kept thinking to myself  "Are there people in those buildings?"  Horrified I called my husband crying, begging him to come home, they were unsure of  where another plane was, then the pentagon was hit.  I was sure that Chicago was going to get hit next.  My husband calmed me down and stated that he was going to stay at his office, in Chicago, until things settled down.

All those lives lost, my heart was broken.  As a Nurse, I felt like I should have been doing somthing.  I went to work that night. I was so sad.  Our NICU was in the process of building a new state of the art Nursery, and the construction company had put up a fake wall, to seperate us from the building going on.

I saw that wall and told my night crew that I am going to draw the American flag on it. I felt very patriotic and proud of our country.  The girls and I spent the whole night drawing this flag, it was very cathartic.

Then we drew little stars with all of our premie patient's names on them.

And at last we put up the saying, "Above the ashes we will rise and unite"

There were four of us nurses that night, who did this, but when the day shift came in, they felt very proud of our flag, they started adding everyones name to the little stars.

People from all over the hospital came to see our flag.  It was just a drawing, but it brought us a little closer together that night.

I will never forget that fateful day or that healing night.