Our Personal 9/11
What We’ve Learned from Twenty-one Years of Marriage
What We’ve Learned from Twenty-one Years of Marriage
September 11, 2001, was a transformative date for America. It was a warm and sunny morning with clear skies, and in America, most people were going about their regular morning routines.
For the third time in our history (the first time being the attack by the British during the War of 1812 and the second, the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941), our country was attacked on our own soil by foreigners.
Unlike the War of 1812 in the 19th century or Pearl Harbor in the 20th century, however, this was a nonmilitary attack, but a highly coordinated attack by an insurgent terrorist group trying to bring down the United States government and harm our economy for their own purposes.
Throughout the history of the United States, there have been thousands of domestic terrorist attacks by Americans against their fellow Americans, where often scores and hundreds of people died at the same time.
On 9/11/2001, however, thousands died at the same time. The sheer number of deaths at once and in three different locations made the event that much more difficult and heartbreaking and changed the way many things were done in this country, ostensibly in the name of “Homeland Security.”
How I Remember 9/11/2001
Everyone who remembers that day also remembers what they were doing when the first planes hit the towers. Here in Michigan, it was election day, and our voting location had recently been changed.
I decided to walk to our new location during my morning four-mile walk, and when I returned home, the TV was on in my home office but the volume was on silent with the closed captioning on. When I quickly looked up at the TV, it at first looked like one of the tall buildings of the Renaissance Center (we call it the “RenCen”)in downtown Detroit was on fire.
However, the closed captioning said that Peter Jennings of ABC News was reporting, and I remember thinking: “Why is Peter Jennings reporting on a fire in the RenCen?”
Right about that time, my husband came running in the house from the gym telling me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York Center. I asked him: “What pilot couldn’t see the World Trade Center and just ‘bump into it’?” Then the second plane hit the Towers, then the third plane went down in Pennsylvania, and we knew it was a terrorist attack.
Our Personal Memory of September 11
But September 11 was also a transformative day for me. My husband Keith Owens and I got married on September 11, 1998, three years previous. (My husband is also a writer here on Medium.) He and I met on a “half-blind date” in 1988 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where we both lived at the time.
What is a “half-blind date” you ask? At the time, my husband, a journalist, was employed by the Ann Arbor News as an op-ed writer, and I enjoyed reading his columns. The paper had partnered with the American Heart Association on a contest, and the “prize” was a date with Keith to see Miles Davis at the Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor.
I left a message on Keith’s work voice mail telling him why I would love to go with him to see Miles Davis, and he chose me out of all the callers because 1) he thought I had a sexy voice, and 2) I actually knew who Miles Davis was!
It turned into a “half-blind date” because I knew what Keith looked like because his picture was in the paper every week, but he had no idea what I looked like. I made a donation to the American Heart Association, the *Ann Arbor News*paid for the tickets to the concert, and Keith and I had a great time.
Over the next few years, Keith and I became friends and found out how much we had in common in many different areas. We went out for lunch, to the movies, to plays and concerts, and just really enjoyed each other’s company.
Keith eventually left Ann Arbor for Florida to work at the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and we lost touch. Then a few years after that, in 1995, Keith came to Detroit to work on the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press. I had moved back to Detroit, my hometown, in 1991.
When I again saw Keith’s picture in the paper, I called him and work, and we resumed our special and fun friendship right where we had left off in Ann Arbor, again going to lunch, concerts, etc., and generally having a good time with each other.
I had been married once before, and Keith had been engaged once before. We became such close friends and were always having such a good time together that both of us were rather wary of changing our relationship status. It is said that the best way to ruin a great platonic friendship is to turn it into a real relationship.
So after going on a date together to a Memorial Day barbecue at the home of one of Keith’s friends, we started talking very carefully about taking our friendship to the next level. Keith’s mother, who lived in Denver, was going to have surgery that upcoming August and Keith said we’d talk about things between us on his return to Detroit around Labor Day.
In early September 1997, we played telephone tag until we finally settled on a date to meet and talk. The day was Thursday, September 11; the day we took a deep breath and decided to elevate our wonderful friendship to a real long-term relationship. Within three months, we knew we would be together forever, on Valentine’s Day 1998, Keith proposed marriage (on one knee!) and I accepted.
More Than One Kind of September 11 Remembrance
We set our wedding date for exactly one year after we became an official couple: Friday, September 11, 1998, and that is how September 11 became a transformative date for both of us. On September 11, 2019, we will celebrate our 21st year of marriage and thirty-one years of being friends. We became friends almost as soon as we met on that half-blind date, and to this day we are still each other’s best friend. As a matter of fact, our wedding song is “You Are My Friend” by Patti LaBelle.
Going back to September 11, 2001, I clearly remember being very selfishly upset and bummed that the attack happened on our third wedding anniversary, but understandably, I was in shock like everyone else. However, three days later, on Thursday, I was glued to the TV as we all had been since that fateful morning, when I saw a Black gentleman about my age walking around and around the Pentagon, looking completely lost and devastated.
I later found out that Tuesday, September 11, 2001, was his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and he and his wife had planned an anniversary dinner at a restaurant for later that evening when she got home from work. Of course, she never came home from work ever again. I will never forget the image of that man who lost his best friend on that day.
So how have Keith and I and our marriage not only survived twenty-one years but thrived all of this time, when 50% of marriages barely last seven years?
First, we were then and still are best friends. We still make each other laugh harder than anyone else and we know and enjoy everything we have in common.
Second, and just as important, we are committed to making things work between us. We decided from the day we were engaged that divorce was never, ever an option. Both sets of our parents were married for life to their respective spouses until death, and they were great role models for us.
Of course, we have disagreements and not everything is rosy all the time. It was quite an adjustment learning to live with another person when each of us had been single for so long. Keith is an only child and I am the eldest of four daughters. When we got married, Keith had no children and I had three, including a teenager. One of us (not mentioning any names…) really had to learn how to share!
Lives End and Lives Begin
Overall, our marriage has been a wonderful one, for the primary reasons I stated earlier in this story. We really will be together until “death us do part.” As sad as every September 11 is for all Americans, that date will also always be a special day for us: our wedding day.
About Me:
After a 35+-year career in education (Pre-K — 14), collaborative sales, and sales management and marketing, I started my first writing and editing business, Writing It Right For You, in July of 2008; expanding to my second, Detroit Ink Publishing, in 2012, and my third, Your Business Your Brand Creatively, in 2014.
I combined my first and third companies in 2018.
I provide writing, editing, web design and maintenance, publishing, branding, marketing, business consulting, and social media marketing services for clients, and I specialize in working with creative and solo freelancers on branding and marketing their businesses.
I also host a weekly podcast: “The YB2C Live! Podcast for Entrepreneurs,” available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and soon, Pandora.
You can find me on social media:
Facebook: http://facebook.com/yb2cmarketingsystem
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pamelahilliardowens
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