Inspiration of the Remembrance Flag About a week after the tragedy, overcome
with grief and helplessness, I prayed before going to sleep. This
particular prayer was not as generic as I sometimes pray when I'm
extremely tired. With deep compassion in my heart for the victims
& their families, I asked God to show me specifically what I
could do to help in some way. Then I went to sleep. That night I
had an incredibly realistic dream. I dreamed I was walking in NYC
at ground zero. I was looking at all the rubble from the fallen
towers, amazed at all the debris that was surrounding me. I woke up the next day with the vivid picture of this flag on my mind. This, I recall being strange because I rarely dream and if I do, I never remember it. So I go through the day trying to get this "flag" out of my mind, but it's still there...all the time and, finally, by the end of the day, I decide to sit down & make a rough sketch of the flag, thinking it will go away. Then I color it in. About that time, my husband walks in the door after being at work all day. At first, I wasn't going to show it to him, but something told me I should. Of course, you'd have to know my husband to appreciate this statement, but he doesn't get moved very often. Nothing excites him! So when I started to tell him about my dream and showed him the sketch of the flag, I was floored by his response. He insisted that we go immediately to the shop & make the flag on our graphics program on the computer, which we did. That weekend , we spent the whole
day making a prototype of the flag. Twelve hours later, we had two
finished flags (one for me, one for the president). We quickly sent
one off to the president, at the same time getting the copyright
taken care of. All this was done before the end of September.
From then until now, we've been preparing the flag for future sales.
We originally ordered 200 flags to present to local politicians,
firestations, & policestations, but when the flags arrived (December
11th), things were already taking a different twist. I had an old
friend in New Jersey call me out of the blue that night, and I mentioned
the "flag project" to her. And with the same excitement
as my husband had, she began telling everyone up North about the
flag. Two days later, I recieved a phone
call from Monica Iken,
September's Mission asking to see the flag because she and other
victims' organizations are looking for ways to fund their foundations,
and she thought this flag may be a good source.She explained that
she would be meeting with Mayor Guiliani that Monday and would love
to have a flag to give him and other victims' family members who
would be at the meeting. Naturally, my husband and I dropped everything
to go to NYC that weekend to meet with Monica. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths" -Proverbs 3:5-6 |
At
some point I looked up and saw a huge flag pole right in the center
of all the debris. My eyes then glanced to the top of the pole where
a large American flag was gracefully flying, backlit by the sun.
I then glanced below the US flag to see another flag flying. ( It
was what we know of today as the Remembrance Flag).
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