I Remember ...

I remember ... the sadness of hearing that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings. What a terrible accident.

I remember ... the shock when the news announced that another plane had crashed into the other WTC and realizing it was no accident.

I remember ... feeling numb when the announcement was made that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon.

I remember ... as the first tower fell a coworker whispered, "What about all those emergency people who are still inside?"

I remember ... hearing that a fourth plane had gone down in Pennsylvania--perhaps brought down by its passengers--and I felt a surge of pride for the people inside who'd realized what was planned for them and that they'd decided to take their destiny into their own hands.

I remember ... watching the second tower fall. How much more could we take?

I remember ... crying all day and for a long time to come. I'm crying as I write this.

I weep for the innocents who were injured or died. For the people forced to choose between being consumed in the fire or leaping to certain death. For their families who still grieve them.

I cry for the children growing up who won't know a time before September 11th and have only experienced a world where people who don't even know them could harbor such hate that they would strike out to maim and kill them, where their supporters could cheer and dance in the streets at the images of death and carnage.

I grieve that mankind cannot seem to be better, that we don't live long enough to learn from our mistakes, to see what's really important in life.

Yet, the fact that the events of that day in 2001 filled--and continues to fill--the hearts of so many people with horror gives me hope.

A noble heart cannot suspect in others the pettiness and malice that it has never felt.
~Jean Racine

I appreciate everyone who takes the time to share their experiences from that day ten years ago.

Superlatives?

I need to thank Carrie Butler over at So, You're a Writer for an award I'd never seen before:

Thanks for thinking of me, Carrie. I agree with you in your post here. This award is a little more complicated and, for me, difficult to assess. Recipients are supposed to provide links back to a few of their blog posts based upon seven categories. 

How the heck am I supposed to determine "seven post superlatives"? For example, is a post most popular because it had the most comments, that it had the power to get people to take the time to respond? Or the number of visitors who, perhaps, left too stunned by the quality of the post to comment (yeah, and then I wake up). How do we quantify someone else's experience when they visit our blogs?
I can't. So you're stuck with my interpretation. And I'm biased, either for or against.

1. Most Beautiful

Tribute
The post I wrote after my father died last march.








2. Most Popular

According to my blog stats, it appears that my Fun & Games Blogfest post had the most page views. By a substantial number.


3. Most Controversial
This one was easy to decide on. It was the post about self-publishing.

4. Most Helpful
Okay. Now it's getting hard because this is so subjective. How do I really know if something I've written about turned out to be helpful to someone? 

Source

So, I'll go with one of my Grammar Friday posts and hope that I'm right. I like the one dealing with punctuation because I love the example so much.



5. Most Surprisingly Successful

I think this has to be my unmentionables post. I'm not into risque posts, and most of the ones I'd seen were definitely that, so when I was tagged for that meme, I was conflicted. However, I decided there was room for some potential humor there while still maintaining my propriety.



6.  Most Underrated
Once again, how can I even guess at this? I suggest it was my review of Natalie Palmer's book Second Kiss, which I dearly loved.









7. Most Pride Worthy
I'm not sure what to put on here, either. I was tempted to leave it up to you guys, but I decided to list my book review of the I Am Not a Serial Killer series by Dan Wells. Perhaps because this is not a genre I read anymore. Perhaps it's because of the way Dan managed to make me love the terribly flawed, icky fantasizing, wanting to be noble John Cleaver that makes me gush about this series. John is no Dexter to try and justify his atrocities by targeting an "appropriate" kind of victim. Seriously. I can't gush enough about this series. It really struck a chord with me.

So, there you have it. My 7 (presumptuous) superlatives. Now I get to select seven others to pass this on to. Be sure to check their blogs out:

An Alleged Author

Cindy M. Hogan

Dianne K. Salerni

Ellie Garratt

Laila Knight

L.G. Smith

Mark Noce

Here's to a great week everyone. I need to get through another poll worker training session (hopefully not an epic fail this time) and then I have a four-day weekend. And my mind is buzzing with ideas for WIP #3!