Chicken Soup for the Soul of America Read Free

that for a moment. It’s the very definition of heroic. There is something else in that story, however, something incredible that should fill every American with pride. None of those American passengers took command. Nobody ordered them to attack the terrorists. Nobody forced them to follow along with the heroic insurgence.
    Faced with death, tyranny, and terror, those Americans voted to sacrifice their lives for others.
    September 11, 2001, is a day, as was said of Pearl Harbor, that will live in infamy. Thousands perished at the hands of cowards. We should never forget, however, that it was also the day that a few heroic patriots thousands of feet above Pennsylvania farmland sent a message to the entire world—our commitment to freedom and democracy, in the United States of America, is not wavering, it is not shaken, and it cannot be taken away by any act.
    America is freedom.
    Bill Holicky

Let Us Be United
    September 10, 2001, was our eighth wedding anniversary. My husband, Alan, was leaving the next day for a week back in California to try his last Clean Water Act case. He’d decided to give up a thriving environmental law practice for a year’s sabbatical spending more time with family and offering volunteer work in India. We spent the day celebrating our love for each other, planning our future and counting the blessings in our lives. We were so grateful for our life together. Alan always said, “When we wake up each morning, we should feel gratitude for being alive.” And we did.
    Alan woke up at 4:30 on Tuesday for his morning flight to San Francisco. As he kissed our five-year-old daughter Sonali and me good-bye, I pulled him toward me, knocking him over. He laughed heartily and said, “I’ll return with the pot of gold.”
    â€œYou are my pot of gold, Alan,” I said. “Come home safe and sound.”
    He assured me he would, and at 7:00 A.M. , he called to say he had checked in, he loved us, and he’d be back by the weekend.
    And then it all began. . . . The CNN announcer confirmed that Flight 93 bound for San Francisco had crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. In that instant, I felt a crushing blow. Devastated, with the wind knocked out of me, I could barely get a sound out as shock and disbelief poured through my veins. My heart literally stopped beating and I had to will myself to live. How could my husband, my best friend who I’d kissed good-bye hours earlier, be dead?
    When Sonali came home from school, I let her play for an hour before I told her the news. I wanted to savor the innocence of her not knowing Daddy was dead. When she heard Alan’s plane had crashed and he was not coming home, she wailed a cry so deep and heartbreaking, a cry I pray I will never hear again from any living being. She sobbed for an hour straight, and then she looked me in the eyes and said, “I am so sad. But I’m not the saddest girl in the world. Some children have lost their mommy and their daddy, and I still have you.”
    A few days after the crash, Sonali’s brother Chris, concerned that Sonali might not understand what was really happening, asked her, “Do you know where Daddy is?”
    â€œYes, he’s at work!”
    Chris was wondering how to handle this, when she continued. “Silly, he’s in court. Defending the angels.”
    Sonali’s courage in the following weeks continue to amaze me and remind me of her dad. One of Alan’s final contemplations was a sentence he’d heard in a recent workshop, Fear—Who Cares? I know these words helped guide him on September 11.
    Sonali and I attended a memorial service at the crash site in Pennsylvania with her older brothers Chris and John. Standing at the fence, staring out at the field and the scorched trees, I couldn’t help but notice what a beautiful place it was for him to die. Such an expansive countryside with golden red trees—this is where it all ended for Alan.