It was a Monday morning much like any other Monday. The markets opened as they normally do, and I was watching the financial channels on the TV in my office, and all of the charts and tickers I traded then. There was nothing particularly memorable about the day, I can’t even remember if I made money, or lost it that day. After a day of watching the markets, they closed as they normally do. Nothing special, just another Monday among a long trail of Mondays. Aside from the allergies I have to deal with at this time of year, I really enjoy the cooler temperatures and the brisk days. I always enjoy a good crisp September day with clear skies and no humidity. It’s a refreshing change from the hot muggy days of summer. Little did any of us know that this was going to be the last “Normal Monday” for quite some time. And even more amazing to think about is that people born that fateful Tuesday, September 11, 2001 will no longer be teenagers. I can now relate to those who remembered Pearl Harbor, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, the space shuttle Challenger explosion, and more, as they recall where they were when they heard the news, and how the world and what seemed important just moments before, now paled in comparison to what had just happened.
I couldn’t relate to Pearl Harbor, but my grandfather could share his experience, and he did. I wasn’t born yet when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, but I did go to a high school named in his honor. I can remember all of the rest of the things I mentioned. And then there’s 9/11/2001. It’s in a category all by itself. It wasn’t an attack by an organized national military. It was a demonstration of how vulnerable and unprepared we were as a country as we went through what we thought was just another Monday.
That all was about to change. We all remember the day, Tuesday, September 11, 2001. But what was about to unfold started long before that day. And, had we known what we know today, this Monday, September 10, 2001–twenty years ago now, was anything but normal. The planning of many months was now in motion, and far too much of it went without a hitch. It left a mark that remains to this day in lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, PA. Nobody had to look up where the first two locations were. But Shanksville Pennsylvania wasn’t nearly as well known. Yet this would become the place where the first people to resist the terror attacks would lose their lives to save others on the ground. We may never know what the intended target of flight 93 was, but we can be thankful there were heroes on that flight who put the lives of others ahead of their own.
With what I do for a living now, days like today that have me thinking about this day twenty years ago, and how so many were not prepared. You might ask, how could anyone be prepared for a day like 9/11/2001? It’s easier than you might think. You simply set aside a little money now to pay for life insurance. You make a small adjustment to your spending, and you can then have peace of mind, that if something happened to you, and your family could no longer count on your ability to earn an income, they’d be able to carry on. I work with families every day to craft plans that work for them, because if the plan doesn’t work for the family, they’ll stop paying, and the insurance will lapse. When that happens, what the family really needs won’t be there. No amount of money that I might make by convincing a family to get more insurance than they can afford to have will make me feel good about the call from the family who thought they still had a policy.
If thinking about the past has you now thinking about the unknowns of the future in a new light, call, text or e-mail me to set up an appointment today. 717.833.4045 (call or text) or ken.christensen.insurance@gmail.com (e-mail) Thank God for the blessings you have today, and never take them for granted! That’s the lesson for “A Normal Day Twenty Years Ago.”