Where were you when...

20 years ago today the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated shortly after take-off.

I was in the 8th grade. My father taught math at the same junior high school I attended and all my peers came to me saying that he had cried upon hearing the news. My family had joked about submitting his name for the Teacher in Space program. One teacher from our school district, under whom I would later teach, made the Final 7 cut with Christa McAullife. Obviously not chosen, I remember the local news stations interviewing him that night and he was visibly shaken and greatly saddened, as he had been through various trainings with Ms. McAullife and had come to know her.

There is a nice memorial to those astronauts at Arlington National Cemetary, up in the same general area as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Up until this explosion, I was always up early for all Space Shuttle launches, excitedly watching them take off as a young girl, dreaming of what that experience must be like. Following that launch, and to this day, I have yet to see a take-off. However, I do remember holding my breath as the last Shuttle re-entered Earth's atmosphere, upon remembering the disintegration of Columbia at re-entry.

In my life, this was the first nation-unifying, national mourning tragedy I had experienced.