Do You Remember?
Isn’t it funny how things burn into our mind? Those catastrophic events that freeze time and we never forget where we were standing when we heard and the moments following. Then the mention of them brings back floods of memories like the smell of Grandma’s bread baking. Whoosh! We are transported.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. For many of you it is too long ago to remember (you young’uns), but I have a clear picture. I was planning my wedding and I remember EXACTLY where I was when I heard about it. I had decided to knit some gifts for my wedding party so I went into a nice yarn shop (where I had never been before) and was looking for something soft and affordable. They had a TV turned on up in the corner and 2 women were chatting across the counter from one another about a class they were teaching that night. I was caressing a skein of yarn when suddenly one of them stopped and yelled, “Oh NO!!!” The three of us turned toward the television reporting the explosion. We just stood there, not believing it. Not moving.
I guess there’s a second of belief that if you freeze, time will stop too and this disaster will reverse and life will go back to normal. Like maybe you can stop it from happening. I remember wishing that during my births! LOL!
Another woman walked into the store, the little bell jingled over the door and she picked up immediately on the intensity of the moment as she turned toward the TV that we were all staring at. She was the first of us to start to cry. I heard a slight sobbing sound and glanced at her. There were tears streaming down her face and that’s when I knew the magnitude of this moment. Space travel, our hope, our path for our country had forever changed and I was watching it happen.
The woman at the door said, “Hey, I know we don’t know each other, but would you all pray with me?”
So we all gathered in the middle of the store, holding hands in a small circle and prayed. These women were older than me, probably in their 30s and 40s, but they seemed so established and grounded. I was only 20 years old and there to celebrate a new chapter in my life. The world was rich with hope and possibilities. They were mothers. They felt it very deeply.
I don’t remember any of the words spoken in prayer that day, but the feeling of standing with 3 strangers in a circle crying and praying for our country, for the families that had been sitting in those benches and watching their loved ones die, for the school children of Christa McAuliffe who had been watching it from the classroom. That prayer will go down in my life as one of the sweetest.
Tomorrow we move on and it goes back in the files of our memories again. There are other days….9-11 of course, deaths, personal tragedies, etc. So today is a day to let it sink in that no matter what is happening around us, we can come together as strangers to lift up a nation.
Oh, and I never did knit anything for my wedding party. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, plus I really wasn’t very good at knitting.
Do you remember where you were when the Challenger exploded? Hop over to Facebook and share!