September 11th. 5 years ago, I was packing up our family’s stuff to get ready to move into our house later that month. Dwight telecommuted to his job in Washington, DC from the basement of our condo. Nick was 2 & Jessica was a little over 3 months old.

I remember Dwight coming upstairs to the bedroom. He had been watching the Today show (Nick hadn’t been up to turn on the Disney channel yet) and he said “They were showing footage of a plane that hit the WTC & while they were talking, ANOTHER one hit the towers.” I thought that was really strange. I thought maybe it was a news helicopter or something. Then i thought it was just some little 2-passenger planes. Soon, I realized it was 2 BIG jets. I saw all that smoke & I said “There is NO WAY those towers are gonna survive.” Horrified, I saw them both fall. I didn’t want Nick to see any of the footage, so I would sneak peeks at the news when he would go to the bathroom & during his nap.

The worst part for us was that The Pentagon was hit. Dwight had just been on a business trip to DC & actually took trips there every month or so. His office in DC was a few BLOCKS from the White House – which they said was a possible target of the plane that went down in PA. I can’t even remember all the stuff that happened that day for Dwight & his co-workers. I think they had to evacuate their building. I think Dwight talked to some of them via cell phones. It was crazy.

Then, about a month later, dwight had to board a plane in Chicago for another business trip to Washington. I could have just died. I didn’t want him to go, but he assured me that NOW was the safest time to fly. I just kept thinking of being left to raise 2 little kids by myself. I think I held my breath for the entire time he was flying, until he called me from DC. Those were scary days.

Today I try not to live in fear, but I know that I still make a lot of choices based on the “What If” factor. I hate that about myself. I want to live w/o fear. I challenge myself every day to remember that we have NO control over certain things. God will be with me while i’m here & I’ll be with God when I’m not here anymore – it’s a win-win situation, really. Everything in my life just comes down to trust. Am I trusting my life in God’s hands? I know that I’m really trying to – one day at a time.