I heard the news of the planes hitting the WTC when my husband came home from work Tuesday morning. He takes time off on Tuesday morning so I can attend the weekly sit'n'knit at a local yarn shop; since we homeschool our children, I need someone to watch the boys when I would like to go out. My husband came home Tuesday morning saying a plane had hit one of WTC towers. We don't have a television. I headed for the computer only to find out that both towers had been hit.

I should have listened to the radio in our vehicle on the way there, but I didn't. When I arrived at the yarn store, shop owner Nancy was saying the Pentagon had also been hit. The first of the towers had just collapsed. A fourth plane had gone down in PA. My mind started to reel, and all I could do was join her in front of the small TV she keeps in her office/kitchen area at the store.

More knitters arrived, all pulling up a chair in the office, chatting quietly and knitting. I watched in stunned disbelief as the second tower collapsed, on live feed, just as the president of our local knitting guild walked in. I think at this point my horror and shock went over the top.

For 90 mins the knitters gathered there at the yarn store shared their feelings while they knitted. I worked on the finishing of the persian tiles stole in Jade Starmore's "A Collector's Item." Slowly. Distracted by the tragic images on the TV. Then my husband came along to pick me up, accompanied by our youngest son, 10 yr old Christopher. We picked up a new radio on the way home (the old one was kaput).

It was lunch time. I don't remember if I ate anything. I do remember that the food I ate on Tuesday tasted like the ash falling from the skies of Manhattan.

My husband works at IBM. He came home from work later in the afternoon reporting that security was incredibly tight. I couldn't be surprised.

As the day wore on, I haunted the websites of the major news networks, playing videos of the attacks, over and over. I've continued to do that over the past 3 days. Each time I see the terrible footage of passenger jetliners burying themselves in the towers and exploding, it seems as if it's the first time. The shock is still fresh. The act is still incomprehensible.

My thoughts turn to the innocent lives on those planes, the more than two hundred innocent men, women and children on board, and to the people who mourn them. I remember the terrible irony of the Irish man who escaped one of the towers, only to find out that his sister and her daughter were on one of the planes that caused the destruction. I can't wrap my head around it. I just want to reach out and hug them all.

I'm not a native New Yorker. I've been living in this beautiful State for 2 years, but I haven't actually ever visited the City. Still, living in a small metropolitan area in upstate New York only a few hours from NYC, I know that many of the people around me have friends and relatives there. A friend's husband has a nephew who lives 2 blocks from the WTC. They had good news about 10 hrs after the attacks, when the nephew was able to get a clear line and phone them. Unhurt. I'm grateful for my friends' sakes. I know that not everyone here will be so lucky.

May God comfort those who mourn and suffer in the wake of this tragedy. May God strengthen the brave people working hard to find and give medical help to survivors, to find clues in the wreckages in NYC, DC, and PA, to clean up.