The Aussies are here!

I met my friends Kathryn and Darren Sloane for lunch today at Tally's Cafe on Route 66 in Tulsa. Kat and Darren come to the U.S. every other year to travel Route 66 and visit all the friends they've accumulated over the years. They also pick up car parts for their Mustang collection. They're just about the most charming people you'd ever want to meet, and I could have stayed at lunch forever, but they are due in Joplin this afternoon to join the Missouri Route 66 Motor Tour. I'm so envious! A lot of my friends are on the tour, and this afternoon they're all going to be in Joplin, which is quite close to Afton. But as usual on Fridays, I can't be there. Bummer!________________

It's impossible for me to get through any Sept. 11th without having constant thoughts about another Sept. 11 eight years ago. Last year, I had only been blogging for a couple of months on Sept. 11, and I posted my thoughts on the terrible tragedy. Upon reading the post, I have decided I can't add much to it, so I'll reprint it here, with solemn memories of those who died that terrible day and those left behind.

Although I lived almost in the shadow of the World Trade Center when it went down (it could be seen from the beach of our Connecticut town), I happened to be in Oklahoma on 9/11/01. We were there on one of our many trips down to oversee work on the house we were building there and to make preparations for our move. We had just purchased Afton Station, and on the morning of 9/11, instead of going to the building site with my husband, I headed straight from the motel to the print shop to get some Afton Station papers photocopied. When I walked in smiling, the distressed-looking guy behind the counter asked "Don't you know what just happened?" I hadn't heard any news that morning, so I had no idea what he meant. "Seems that a plane has flown into the World Trade Center in New York", he said, and then he invited me to come to the back office where there was a TV tuned to the news. Like every other person in our nation, I was paralyzed by shock at the picture on the screen. The rest is history.

So much has happened in my life since 9/11/01. I now live in Oklahoma. I am divorced. I have my beloved Afton Station. I have wonderful new friends and a new life, but I still have so many old and dear friends. I own my own home. My daughter got married. I had a major illness and am now on kidney dialysis. And although some of those things sound very bad, when you compare them to the last 8 years in the lives of the loved ones of those who died on 9/11, I can only consider my own life a miracle. I have never thought of myself as a survivor, but now I think maybe I am. And my heart goes out to those whose loss was so sudden, so unexplainable, so needless on that terrible September day in 2001. I pray that they have been able to find their inner survival skills, too.