A Week of Remembrance

I am writing my blog post early this week since I will be traveling on Friday to Galena, Illinois for Romantic Galena Reads and to hang out with some wonderful author friends.

This week I am devoting this post in memoriam...

September 4, 1997 - My wonderful loving father passed away after sustaining injuries in an auto accident in Kokomo, Indiana. Harold Keefer was one of the two parents who chose me to come home and be his daughter. He was a 1st Lieutenant in the Army in WWII and served our country with bravery. He came away from that service with a Purple Heart after losing a portion of his arm on the battlefield. However, he never let that disability stop him from being hard-working and active. He instilled in me the ethic to be a contributor to our society and not let anything get in my way. I lost my hero that day.

September 10, 2025 - It has been a year since a faithful Christian man was taken from his wife and children for having an opinion different than that of the sick soul who aimed his gun and shot him. Charlie Kirk was a man that invited dialogue. He gave others the opportunity to challenge him in public forums and merely asked only that he be given the same courtesy. He went to college campuses to engage with students and faculty in an attempt to give them insight into a different way of thinking. To challenge their beliefs and look at things in a whole new light. He lived his life based on Christian conservative values and because of those values, he hated nobody. Instead of spreading hate, he prayed for those who hated him. He devoted his young life to spreading the message of Christianity to all. For that devotion, he was sent home to Heaven long before it was time.

September 11, 2001 - Twenty-five years ago two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-seven innocent souls were lost this day at the hands of a deadly terrorist attack on American soil. As I have browsed all the memorials on social media, I find myself with the same ache in my heart as I did that day. I remember sitting at my desk in my office early that morning. I had arrived around 6 am because I had an afternoon class at Thomas Cooley Law School in Lansing, MI and would need to leave early. Shortly before 8 am our time, our customer service representative stuck his head in my door as he arrived and said that he had heard on the news a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. As others started arriving, we heard that it was an intentional act by hijackers. We all went into the conference room and turned on the television to watch the news. As we watched, we saw the second plane fly into the other tower. It was 8:03 Indiana time. By this time, we knew that our country was under attack. We learned of the attack on the Pentagon, and we watched as the towers fell just before 10:00 am New York time. Then we heard there was still one plane missing. It was taken down in a field in Pennsylvania by a group of brave passengers Their last act was to protect our Capitol and saving countless other lives.

It is hard to describe the emotions felt that day, I just know how my heart felt. It ached. The country that my father and others bravely fought for had been attacked by a group of heinous Islamic terrorists who hated our country and our ways so much that they engaged in an act of war against us.

We cannot ever forget that day...or the day after when we joined together as a country united in love, for our country and in sorrow for the lives lost. Innocent lives. As you go about your daily activities on Friday, September 11, 2026 I ask that you say a prayer of remembrance for the lives lost that day twenty-five years ago.