Kristie Reed Hartwell

My first husband traveled to New York City the week before 9/11/01 for a one week business trip. I met his return flight at the Seattle airport on the Friday before 9/11.   Originally, his trip would have been during 9/10 - 9/14, but it was changed.  If it had not been changed, he would have been stuck in NY, and I would have been stuck in Seattle with 2 babies, Reed and Ben, while he tried to get home.  His co-worker had a meeting in Tower 7, again, the week before the attack. 

Later that fall, he had another trip to NYC during which he attended a funeral for one of the NYC firefighters.  Although he did not know the firefighter, he was deeply touched to attend the public funeral at a beautiful cathedral.

My parents traveled by train from Virginia to New York on August 11, 2001 for a long weekend before the school year started. They had lunch at Windows on the World restaurant in Tower 1 (2?) and saw a few Broadway shows.  A retired Air Force officer, my father had many trips from our home in Texas to the Pentagon during the 1970's.  When I lived in Arlington, Virginia in 1992-4, I commuted by bus to the Pentagon, then caught a train into downtown Washington, DC. 

By the time 2001 arrived, my sister and I had moved away from Virginia. My parents were in a little town 70 miles west of the Pentagon. Although our lives were NOT tragically affected by the terrorism of 9/11/01, as Americans who had lived and traveled via airplane to Virginia and New York, my family IS tightly connected to New York City, and the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania field.  We are connected to the grief shared by many over the evil acts that ended humans lives and attempted to bring down our American way of life.  We will always remember.  

I have always felt that our families grief is minor compared to those who lost loved ones. but to me, any minor change in travel plans could have cost me a husband or parents. So, to me, the attacks are significant. 

It's very eerie to see my parents photo album. Mom placed the elevator tickets to the Windows on the World restaurant in it. The date is clearly stamped, August 11, 2001. What if the attacks had been on 8/11?

As each anniversary of 9/11 approaches, I read the essay "Falling Man" and pray for the families who remember.  We watch a portion of the Live ceremony broadcast from the 9/11 Memorial with families reading each of the names of the people who perished in Lower Manhattan.  We remember and will always teach our children about this life-changing day in history.

God bless America. Land that I love.

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A prayer for writers and speakers participating in the online conference...

Heavenly Father

We ask for your Holy presence at this online She Speaks Conference; for your wisdom and insights to guide us; for your compassion to form our souls as we enjoy creating writing and speaking projects; and for your beauty to shine through us as we share the Gospel of Jesus in this world.   We thank you for technology that allows us to meet virtually during this season of life and ask for your help to overcome our disappointment of not meeting in person.  Thank you that your love and message of redemption will never be hidden in the darkness of a global pandemic.  We praise your beauty and sovereignty. 

Amen

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“Mommy, help!” cried Christopher, Rebecca's oldest child, almost age four.  Recognizing the cry as a minor complication rather than a true emergency, Rebecca replied from another room, “What is it, honey?”

“I can’t find my game.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

Rebecca finished drying the dishes and walked over to the family computer.  Chris was sitting in front of the computer with his hand on the mouse, randomly clicking.  “What are you looking for, buddy?” Rebecca asked.

“My VeggieTales game.”

“Oh, I know how to find it” Rebecca replied, taking control of the mouse.  She clicked on the Address line then clicked on the down arrow to show the list of recently visited sites.  As she read through the list, she felt vomit rise from her stomach into her throat.  Suppressing the urge to see her lunch again, she simultaneously stifled a scream of horror.  Calmly, she clicked on veggietales.com and started the game. 

“I’ll be right back, buddy. I’m just going to my bedroom” she instructed Chris. 

Walking as quickly as she could, she made it to her bedroom without crying.  Shutting the door, she began to cry and jump up and down in a fit of despair, anger and disgust.  Silently, she processed the name of the website listed, shook her body and threw herself on the bed. It was the complete opposite of the innocent kids site her son visited. The website provided answers to questions she had asked for several years.  It explained so many things that were wrong with her marriage.  It shook the foundation of her being.  Yet it was so shocking she couldn’t tell anyone.  Not yet, at least.  She would have to continue the facade and survive the next eternal minutes, days, who knew how long.

​After what seemed an eternity, Rebecca swallowed her lunch, again.  Resolving to remain calm for the evening, she returned to the family room to manage dinner, her preschooler, and her baby.  Soon, her husband, Anthony, would return for another evening of hide and seek.  And not the game children played... the version in which her secretive, deceptive husband excelled. 

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Watching college football on television is one of our families favorite pastimes.  From our living room in Austin, Texas we enjoyed our favorite teams, Stanford Cardinal (my husband’s alma mater) and University of Texas Longhorns (my lifelong favorite team).  Sometimes during a Cardinal game, the camera would span across the Stanford, California skyline.  Many buildings were white with a red roof, beautiful Spanish style architecture.  In the middle of the campus stood a tall building with windows on the top.  The rest was solid white, no way to look out from inside.  I remember thinking how pretty it was.  Yet didn’t wonder further about its purpose on the campus.

A job opportunity for my husband led us to move to California and good fortune provided a home near the Stanford campus. As I learned my way around a new city, I began to wonder about the various buildings that illuminated the skyline.  Remembering the televised football scenes, I decided to learn about the Tower at Stanford.  Consulting the internet, I learned that the iconic building is part of the Hoover Institution, a world-renowned Library and Archives at home on the Stanford University campus.  Started by President Herbert Hoover in 1919, Hoover Institution has grown into a public policy research center while continuing its work preserving historical artifacts.  The Library & Archives “holds more than one million volumes and over six thousand archival collections documenting war, revolution, and peace in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (hoover.org/library-archives).” I was fascinated that such a large library existed outside of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

In addition to watching college football, another family pastime is studying history.  We also cherish friendships with people all over the world.  One long time friend was a missionary to Hungary for many years.  These thoughts guided me as I looked at the Hoover website to begin my own research project.  With just a few clicks, I was viewing photographs from a 2015 protest of their Presidents new World War 2 memorial.  A few minutes later, I discovered how to make an appointment for an in-house review of the writings of the Hungarian Ambassador to Switzerland from 1920 to 1945.  Reading Hoover's website was a more fascinating way to pass the time than streaming a television show in binge mode!
 

One distinctive feature of the Library & Archives is that it is open to the public (and not only for Stanford students and faculty).  I plan to visit soon to look at their collection of antique posters.  When my son (a History major) comes home from college for Christmas vacation, we will explore Hoover Tower during a long afternoon of reading, learning and wondering what else we can find in their wonderful collection.  

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I've been out of the collegiate world for a while (as in a couple decades). Full fledged American adulthood is pretty easy compared to, say, an Indonesian fishing wife washing her family's laundry in a dirty bay. I've had my own cars, well paying jobs, babies in a hospital with clean, sterile surgical equipment, homes with solid plumbing and roof materials keeping the elements away from my bed. Vacations, new clothes, good food. My parents are still living, married, healthy. My sister is my closest friend and well.... You know the story. Many of you have lived it, also. Life has been pretty comfortable for me.

After college, I moved to Washington, DC, started working at the Department of Defense and settled in to a new housemate situation. I did what many young people did, I subscribed to The Washingtonian magazine, seeking restaurant ideas, theater suggestions, tips on living in a huge city with a very high crime rate. I can still picture the first time I saw the words "Politically Correct" and "Politically Incorrect" in that magazine. The editors had made a list of items that were supposedly acceptable, silly things like Pepsi, turkey and avocado sandwiches, and Honda automobiles. Similarly, the unacceptable items were Coca-Cola, ham sandwiches, and Yugos. (Google that one if you don't know what it is!) I thought, what the heck does Pepsi have to do with politics? Who gets to decide which items make the list? Who says that ham sandwiches are "Politically Incorrect" (my dad loves them by the way) and why should I care?

I dismissed the whole notice of making lists like that as incredibly silly and a waste of time. I was a strong person, I didn't care who thought what about my tastes. A few days after dismissing the lists, I was having dinner with my boyfriend and another couple. We were talking about work, cars, the usual stuff when the husband said, "Oh, you like Coca-Cola? That's not politically correct!!." And looked at me with a very serious face. I thought he was joking. So I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Didn't you read the list in The Washingtonian? I always want to be politically correct." Right there, that attitude occurred to me as silly, strange and extremely sheepish! I still thought he was joking. As the evening wore on, I began to see that he was a person who needed someone else to tell him what to do. He was going to follow trends, and just go along to get along, not caring what he wanted, somewhat, just as long as he was Politically Correct.

He was a prime example of the new way of thinking that blazed its way through the United States of America in the 1990's. Unfortunately, many, many others also were ready to accept this notion of following the crowd.  Now we have universities, city councils, state leaders and national leaders all very concerned with doing the "Politically Correct" thing. I'm choosing to do what I like, within moral boundaries, regardless of whether it is "correct" or "incorrect" with a crowd.