Free Chicken Soup for the Soul of America by Jack Canfield Page B

together what appeared to be his office staff. We stop for a moment to see if we can glean any more information, then walk on.
    At a traffic light, my coworker recognizes a congressman who has rolled down his vehicle window and is talking with people—telling them the latest information as he knew it. My coworker urges me to take his photograph and I suddenly remember—I am a journalist. For a brief second, I wonder if I should head back into the action for “a story.” Images of my family fill my mind, and I immediately know that I am not a hard-core reporter.
    The streets are crowded with honking cars, and sirens blare everywhere. I begin to cross, and my coworker yanks on my arm as a car speeds recklessly around the corner. The irony—would I survive this morning, only to be hit by a car?
    Yet the people in the streets were surprisingly calm and orderly—following the police officers’ directions. My coworker and I head back to our hotel and regroup with the others.
    The first thing nearly everyone does is phone home—to get word out that we are all right. I felt desperate to have my children know that their mother is alive, and I need assurance that they, too, are okay.
    Crowds gather around any available television to watch the horrific events unfold before our eyes and to comfort one another.
    I go to the lounge and find it full of people, their eyes glued to the television. I am asked if I’d like a glass of wine. No, I reply, I need something a little stronger today—the news report had just flashed a list of commercial aircraft unaccounted for. We feel like “sitting ducks.” We wonder what this might be the beginning of—or what might come next. Our hotel is in the same building as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other federal office buildings surround us. I want out of there.
    As the afternoon drags on, I cannot sit idly in my hotel room. I walk, observe people playing cards in the lobby, and make my way to the rooftop pool to look around the city. Several people are swimming, as if it were a normal day. A plane flies over and people cringe. “It’s just our fighter jets,” a man loudly calls out to the group on the roof.
    On the street corner, a family with packed suitcases holds a sign with their anticipated destination—desperately trying to find a way out of town. Several groups with their buses readily available are boarding and leaving town.
    Back at the hotel room, my coworker arranges for our own quick departure via Amtrak. There is no way either of us will get back on an airplane any time soon—especially on the East Coast. I wonder how this day has changed the world in which we live.
    I don’t sleep that night. At 1:00 the next morning, six of us pile into a taxi that takes us to Union Station to catch the 3:00 A.M. train home. The sooner we leave D.C. the better.
    Many long hours later, the train pulls into the midwestern farm town where my family awaits me. I am back home. I step off the train, grab my children and hug them . . . as if I have been given a second chance. Yes, it is going to be all right.
    Maria Miller Gordon

Last Call
    As smoke and heat diminished from the mangled steel and glass,
    The hope of rescue workers faded in and out so fast.
    These heroes of our nation working tirelessly to find
    A sound, a breath, some proof of life, to keep that hope alive.
    The victims were so innocent, just doing their life’s work,
    In a nation called America, the most free on this Earth.
    Suddenly, a worker finds a cell phone flashing red.
    He plays the “last call” message, and this is what it said:
    â€œHello, it’s me. I’m calling to tell you I’m all right.
    I’ve made it up to heaven; I tried to call last night.
    The group that I arrived with is strong and brave and tall,
    And proud to be Americans while answering God’s call.
    â€œI love you all and know I’ve been in all