Thursday, September 11, 2008

Rememberance and Thanksgiving

I shouldn’t be here. I know it sounds like an odd thing to say, but I owe my life to food poisoning.

Seven years and one day ago, I was out eating Thai food at a sketchy restaurant with a friend. We were trying to burn out some mental images we had due to drama we had been drug into many months before. I did that by choking it with food, she did it with drinks.

And the next morning, neither of us felt well, but we both went to work. After all, I had a meeting in the Pentagon that morning. I couldn’t miss it and thought if I took enough Pepto, I could handle that much and probably then knock off early to go back home to rest and recoup.

I didn’t make it.

In fact, I spent my entire morning in various bathrooms reliving my evening’s repast and possibly everyone else’s in the entire Metro area.

I finally made it to my office, having already missed my morning meeting (and most of the day) and was told two things. Firstly, what had happened, more or less informing me how narrowly I escaped Death. Secondly, that they were evacuating everyone, just to be safe, and I needed to turn around and just go home.

I missed everthing. I missed the newscasts, the live coverage of the second plane, the view of the plane heading straight into the Pentagon many of my co-workers had, and I missed being in it’s path myself…where I was supposed to be.

But I still know where I was when the events of 9/11 unfolded. I was blessed and in the care of my Guardian Angel.

2 comments:

caramama said...

Wow. Just wow. I'm so glad you had food poisoning! (I never thought I'd say that to someone.) Better to miss it all than to be in the direct path of the attack.

Anonymous said...

That's definitely a powerful story. It's amazing how something so big can just come down to timing and the path we took prior.