Remembering September 11

Sept. 11, 2001, is a day most of us will never forget. It's one of those days where you remember where you were, what you were doing - the events were so horrifying and unforgettable.
I was on vacation that week. And my mother had come north to visit me. We decided to take a trip to Niagra Falls, Ontario. She hadn't been there in years, and the last time I had gone was when I was maybe 8 years old. She lives almost 500 miles away from me, so it was a time to catch up. Laugh over tourist kitsch, enjoy a beer here, have a lunch there, buy a couple souvenirs and see the Falls.
I can barely remember any of it because of that crazy Tuesday.
It started simply enough. Get dressed, have some coffee, and I needed something from the store. Probably contact lens solution or something mundane like that.
We found the mall and went into Zellers (basically Canada's version of Kmart). We browsed a bit because the exchange rate was well in our favor at the time. Near the pharmacy my mother was looking at canes because her leg was hurting her, and the pharmacist asked if we'd heard what was going on. We said no, and asked what he meant.
This man, who had a thick accent, told us about planes going into the World Trade Center. I thought maybe his English wasn't that good, and he was saying something wrong. I wasn't sure if he even meant the World Trade Center. My mind shifted focus onto the protests some time back in Seattle, for some odd reason.
We were confused and shocked, so we headed into the mall to find an electronics store, and see what they had on the television. There, we were still confused. Something was horribly wrong, but it was still so shocking. Probably because at that moment it was impossible to fathom that people would hijack a plane and fly it into a skyscraper.
I thought it was insane to imagine that someone would even conceive of doing that!
The next few hours were a blur. I was trying to listen on the radio or watch on TV to find out exactly what was happening. It was so immense, so sad, so huge, so tragic to imagine thousands of people in danger, thousands dying. Words can't even begin to describe it. When the towers collapsed, it was as if all sense and order had collapsed. Watching in disbelief as all that steel and concrete tumbling to the ground in dust and flame and ash. How could this happen?
I think the only word to describe how I felt was shock. It was madness. It made no sense to want people to suffer like this, too kill and destroy like this. How could anyone justify that? Thousands of people on the way to work, or to see a loved one, or doing an errand, and their lives are ended in an atrocious act or changed forever.
I was relieved to be near my mother, because she offers a sense of calm, but I was fearful, too, and wanted loved ones near me. To protect them. To know they were safe. I hated being away from home, though. I wanted to be in my apartment, with my cat, and everyone I loved safe and hidden away.
Part of me wanted to be back at work. At that time I worked on the copy desk of a newspaper. There all the nosy people would be, hunting for answers (never mind that it was in Michigan) but there would be discussions. Some would be terrified. Some would be angry. Some would have words of wisdom. It would have been soothing and distracting to focus on work even if it was focusing on the flame and ash of a tragedy.
I remember that first night staying up all night. The motel we had did not have cable, so I was tuning in to a local news affiliate who was providing a feed from New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. It all looked grim, and watching it made me feel sadder, more tired, more crazed. But I wanted some answers, to make some sense of it. Over the years, more answers have been unearthed, but the motives make no sense at all.