We all live in a Post 9/11 world where life will never be the same for any of us.  We all remember what we were doing ten years ago on that fateful day, at the very moment when we first heard the news of the planes hitting the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 went crashing into the field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

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We are now a nation at war ten years, and we’ve come to expect long security lines at airports where bags are searched and nail clippers, now classified as dangerous weapons, are confiscated. Do you remember the Homeland Security Advisory System? Do you remember what all those colors were supposed to tell us? We don’t even use it anymore because it was used too frequently, never really meant anything, and we simply began to ignore it.

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 comes to pass, and I reflect back on how that moment in time has come to change us all, I realize that it isn’t just those who lost a family member on that fateful day who now live differently, and it isn’t just the mundane rituals we endure at the airport that affect each of us.

As with many other American families, the changes that have taken place in my family member’s lives are significant because I know as sure as I’m standing here, that if that fateful day had never taken place, I would not be spending my days doing what I now do.  I honestly have no idea what I might be doing if September 11, 2001, had been just another ordinary day, because all that I was doing then, is now just a distant memory.

It has occurred to me that perhaps I need to try to remember back to what I was doing on September 10, 2001. I don’t have a clue what the specifics were for that day, but if I had known that September 11, would redefine the lives of each one in my family,  I would have certainly made more of a mental note of the day’s events.

Ten years ago, I was still teaching. I had left the classroom and was home educating my two youngest sons, who were at that time, ages 7 and 9.  My oldest son, age 15, was attending the local public high school. Our family was caught up in fall baseball, Tae Kwon Do tournaments, and learning as much as we could about our Christian American history.

I was fascinated by all that I had never been taught about history in my public school upbringing, and as I taught my children, we found that we were becoming very passionate patriotic people.  We were in awe of the government that had been set up, and the great men who had founded this nation. We were enjoying our freedoms given to us by those who have made sacrifices in the past, and I’m embarrassed to say that we simply took it all for granted.

And then, in an instant, our innocence was gone. For the first time in our lives, we were frightened, confused, grief stricken, and unsure of what was happening to our safe and free nation.

I know my oldest son was always planning to go into the military, but it never really sunk in because we weren’t at war and he was just a kid. My plan for him to go to college was the only thing on my mind, and when he decided to enlist two years after the events of September 11th took place, I was determined to talk him out of it.  I never once pictured myself as the mother of a United States Marine deployed to a war zone. I couldn’t imagine it, but one day I woke up and found that to be my reality.

I never thought that in sending care packages to those in ...