It is amazing how events that are far away from us physically can change our lives so quickly.

I remember, as a child, hearing people say they would never forget where they were or what they were doing when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on that fateful November day in 1963. Most of them still haven't.

We all remember such things.

I remember the nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach when I received the tragic news that my young cousin had been killed in a hunting accident. I recall where I was and what I was doing when the nation lost a space shuttle to a massive explosion not long after it took off. I can still hear the anguish in the voices of those who related first-hand accounts of the devastating floods that ravaged our county in the early 1990s. I remember, as if it was yesterday, hearing that a bomb had exploded outside the federal building in Oklahoma City.

Memory is a funny, sometimes cruel, thing. Our memories can supply us with hours of smiles and delight, or they can bring days filled with tears of regret and pain. When we remember, we never know where it might lead.

There was a time when, as I looked to the skies and saw airliners flashing across the blue filled with people going hither and yon, I could enjoy memories of happy trips taken to new places and friendly faces waiting to greet me in terminals far away.

Late yesterday afternoon, while looking to the west from our deck, I saw the condensation trails of several airliners, all going different directions in the crystal blue October sky. Later in the evening, I saw the flashing lights of several more planes, all seemingly traveling to different destinations.

In both instances, my thoughts sped quickly back to the morning of Sept. 11. And then to a conversation I had with my 10 year-old son not long after the tragedy of that day. We were sitting in the front yard talking about football (as usual), when an airplane flew overhead. It was the first airplane we had seen since Sept. 11, and we both felt a chill as we watched it fly eastward. The conversation turned quickly - naturally and without missing a beat - from football to the terrorist attacks.

During that conversation I realized that this, too, was one of those times that will never be forgotten, that people would be saying for years to come, "I'll never forget where I was or what I was doing when the World Trade Center towers disintegrated before our very eyes."

On that day, as we watched from the seeming safety of our front yard another sobering thought came quietly but intrusively into our conversation.

The discomforting thought that we might never be able to look to the skies without remembering Sept. 11, 2001.