September 11th will always remind me of the simultaneous joy and heartbreak I felt at that time. SD and I made that leap from friendship to relationship on September 3, 2001. Then the terrorist attacks happened a week later. And I remember how confused my heart was to feel such great joy over newfound love, and such devastation over incredible loss. Then, I found out my brother was getting deployed.

The tragic events of September 11th affected us all, in different ways. And the aftermath of that day was felt days, months, years after, and even still today. Below is a post I wrote about how, two years after the attacks, my family prepared to say good-bye to my brother for the second time as he faced deployment to Iraq.

Yesterday was surreal.

It started with bad dreams. I must have woken up about four times throughout the night. I don’t know if I woke up from the horrible dreams I was having, or from the loud ass couple who lives in the apartment above me. (I swear it sounded like they were literally jumping around up there in the middle of the night.) Tossing and turning, I woke from my half-sleep to the phone ringing. Sluggishly, I fumbled my cell phone open. It was my mom. Crying. It took a few moments for me to comprehend this. My first thought was that something happened to my grandma, as middle of the night phone calls are always bad news. ”Your brother just called. He might be sent to Iraq.” Wait, what??

My eyes started to flood with tears as overwhelming, familiar feelings came rushing back to me. Two years ago, after the 9/11 attacks, my brother was called to active military duty. The day we found out, we rushed over to his house. He was packing up his stuff. All that went through my mind was, “No. Please God. Please tell me this isn’t happening.” I tried not to cry. I was scared that if I cried, it would be that all-consuming sobbing, the kind that tears through your body, making it hard to breathe and causing you to choke on your own tears. And I was scared that if I cried like that, it would scare my brother even more. So I held it in. Holding that much emotion bottled up inside does weird things to your body. I felt like I was about to erupt. I felt like the world was not real anymore. I didn’t know how to sit there, on that couch, in that house, and watch my brother pack to go to war.

He called me aside and we retreated to the bathroom to have a little privacy from the rest of the family. I remember how badly I wished we could stay locked safely in that bathroom until the danger subsided. He told me that he was scared. He told me that he didn’t want to leave his daughter. He said to me, “What if this is the last time I see her? What if this is the last time I see you all?” I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I cried. I cried so hard. And yes, my breathing did become labored and, yes, I did choke on my tears. And fear and anger ripped through my body. How could I watch my little brother walk out of the door, headed toward war? How? It didn’t feel possible. It didn’t make sense. For the first time in my life, I felt like nothing I could do would protect my little brother. How can that be? It’s a big sister’s responsibility is to protect her younger siblings. I felt so helpless.

It took a couple of weeks for him to actually be deployed. Every day he would go to the army base downtown. And every night he would come back home, with no definite answer as to when he was leaving or where they were sending him. And every night my mom and I stayed with him, trying to savor our time with him, trying to cherish every moment just in case he would be gone the next day. Every false alarm would take us back to the army base, and we would prepare to say goodbye. We would watch the other soldiers. Some had no family with them. They sat alone on the hard cement, waiting for word of where they were being shipped off to. Others were huddled close with their family–their newborn baby, or their kids, or their pregnant wife. It was horrible. It was heart-wrenching. Those couple of weeks were so indescribably hard. How do you behave under those circumstances? Is it okay to try to laugh and keep positive? Is it a bad idea to talk about the reality of the situation? Would that damage moral? What exactly do you do to make the time special…just in case?

When he finally left, he was deployed to Washington and then to Arizona. He spent a year in Arizona, training and waiting…and waiting…and waiting. And then he came home. God answered our prayers. We fooled ourselves into thinking it was over; we thought everything would be okay. But it wasn’t over. Apparently, it had only just begun.

As I remembered all those memories and feelings from the last time they took my brother, I cried on the phone with my mom. And I cried for a little while longer when Steve pulled me into his arms. But then I got up and went to church. I came home, made lasagna, and got dressed for my grandma’s 80th birthday party. All these things–the cooking, putting on make-up, going to a party, it all felt wrong. What was I doing? What did this all matter? When faced with the possibility of your loved one going to war, everything else seems a bit pointless.

Nevertheless, my grandma’s party was great. I hadn’t seen her in so long (she lives in Las Vegas). I laughed and danced and ate as expected, but fear and dread made everything surreal, and that feeling haunted me all night. At one point during the night, the family was in a circle on the dance floor doing the Chicken Dance and the Hokey Pokey. I got that feeling of everything happening in slow motion. You know that feeling? I saw my brother laughing and acting silly. And I heard his words echoing in my head, “This might be the last time I see my family for a while.”

Driving home from the party, Steve held my hand in the car. I took so much comfort in his grasp. I was the most scared I ever felt in my life. I held his hand tight; I didn’t want to let go. The bad vibe that followed me around all night was quickly catching up with me and the feelings I was bottling up were threatening to erupt. I thought about my family. I saw us all dancing and laughing. I saw my brother making jokes and dancing with his daughter. I thought about what was happening in Iraq, and what would happen if my brother was sent over there. I stared at the cars driving on the freeway along side us and tried to forget about my bad dreams and the bad news and the overall bad feeling that was creeping through my body. Everything felt…not right. Everything I saw and everything that happened today felt far away and blurry.

I grasped Steve’s hand tighter. I needed to hold on to something. I needed to feel something real and familiar and right. In a world where your loved ones can be snatched up and sent to war, I needed to hold on to something and something to hold on to me.