Six Years Ago

Six years ago the sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue, and I couldn't wait for the morning hours to pass by. It was the day of the first meet of the 2001 cross-country season, and it was my first meet as an assistant coach for Newton North. My daughter was a senior on the girls team. My son was a freshman, and was thrilled to finally be attending high school. I couldn't have been more excited.

At work, I was sitting in a conference room on the ground floor of our building, which I shared with two of my co-workers as temporary office space. A little bit after 9:30, one of my office mates, Don McAllister, came in and told me that he had just heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

There was no immediate shock or sense of fear. I assumed it had been an accident, although a bizarre one. A half hour later, I and everyone else at work had a very different understanding.

All athletic events were canceled that day. The team met after school anyway, wanting to be together as a team. I expected we would talk about what had happened, but no one knew how to talk about it. The sky remained cloudless, but now the vacant sky had an almost menacing quality. And it was quiet -- quiet in a way that it never had been before.

Pat Pierce was a sophomore on that team. He lost a close relative in the attack on the World Trade Center. In the next several days, we became aware of others close to us who had lost loved ones in the collapse of the towers. They included Newton North's principal, Jennifer Huntington.

Today, September 11, 2007 is the first meet of the fall for Newton North. The forecast is for rain, but the weather is unlikely to dampen the excitement for the start of a new season. I share in that excitement, and I wish all the runners the joy of competition. The future is uncertain -- it always is, even when we think we have it figured out -- but we have the present moment in which to do something worthy of memory.

Run fast. Be strong. Care for each other.