Where were you?

Over at Open Book, Amy is running a thread about where her readers were when they heard that Pope John Paul II had died. This weekend has been the anniversary of his passing, and even channels like CNN are running specials about him. I posted there my story of being in the Outer Banks

We were spending the week with my aunt and grandmother in the Outer Banks. Though we were all checking the news channels pretty much all week, we still were on the beach daily. The actual afternoon (our time) it was announed that the Pope had passed, my husband, my son, and I were in the sand and the surfe. We figure at the actual moment of his passing we were in the process of losing a kite when the string broke in the wind. In a much more capable writer's hands there is probably some gorgeous metaphor to be constructed here, maybe not with the kite in the ocean, but maybe the setting sun, or the toddler filling and dumping sand, or some other aspect of our outing that day but the reality was more like this: We lost our kite. We drove back to my aunt's house and learned the Pope died. We went to dinner anyway.I was surprised that my grandmother, who rarely goes out to eat dinner because it doesn't interest her as much as her books and quiet anymore, greeted us, lipsticked and ready, particularly after hearing the news. My daily Mass-going, Liturgy of the Hours-praying, Frequent Adoration-devotee grandmother told us on the way out the door, "Oh yes, the Pope died while you were out." But she followed that up with something like we may as well get dinner, since no one cooked anything, nor were they planning on it. Like American Papist said, time didn't come to a halt.

I am just glad the story doesn't start out the same way my "Where were you on 9/11" story does:

I was sitting in impossible traffic listening to Howard Stern. Being tired and cranky from staying up too late watching the Giants on Monday Night Football the night before, I felt like half of New Jersey was in the same boat as I, more than an hour late for work because of the game and sitting on 287 N.

Yeah, definitely a story worth telling.