[Jarons]

I was working in a psychiatric hospital working on a child/adolescent unit in Louisville at the time. I was scheduled to be off that day but I decided to work since we had a person recently quit and had not been replaced. I was working as a teachers assistant, covering the position for the person who had just quit. We were getting ready to start music. The music teacher and the other teacher, whose class combined with our class for music, came in and was talking about the twin towers being attacked. The teacher that I was working for let leave the classroom and see what was going on. I watched for about 5 minutes and I went back to the class thinking we had been attacked by another military. One child who was about 10 at the time was the only one who understood what us adults were talking about. The music teacher starting the music class like nothing was happening. The boy started crying and getting scared, started asking me questions. All the while the music class was continuing with songs such as "If your happy and know it". The boy kept asking me if his mother and father were going to be ok. I am trying to answer questions that I didn't know the answers to myself to keep him calm. I didn't know if Louisville was going to get attacked either. I remember walking around work in a daze. I do not really know many other details work that day. As I am driving home from work listening to the radio was when I really realized the magnitude of what had happened. As I was driving home to Shelbyville, I noticed the looks on peoples' faces. Everyone had blank stares, one of the most surreal times in my life.
I know this may sound twisted, one of the beautiful things that came out of 9/11 was that everyone looked at each other as an American. None of this Democrat/Republican or black/white issues. All Americans were united and felt pride about being a citizen of the United States of America. I really wish that we can have that feeling about our country all the time, not in a time of tragedy. I also wish that the firemen and policemen who risk their lives everyday to protect total strangers would looked upon with higher regards from the public (I am guilty too for not being appreciative enough). God Bless America