The morning of September 11th, 2001. I was sitting at my desk at work. In rushes my boss. "A plane just hit the World Trade Center! I have the TV on in the conference room!" As quickly as he appeared, he was gone.
A couple other employees and I walked quickly to the conference room. A fuzzy broadcast of the incident was being shown, apparently we didn't have cable television at work. Footage of a smoking building was on the television, a building I had never seen in person.
Shortly after, the second plane hit. Now it was obvious - this was no accident. That reality hit like a ton of bricks and I was glad to be sitting down. Over and over, the TV station broadcast the plane hitting the building. It was an image that is burned into my mind.
A group of us sat huddled around a huge conference room table, sitting in stunned silence. Then we began to leave, one by one, to call our loved ones. I called Mark at work, and he had just heard about it. More than anything I wanted him to be with me right then, but his office was an hour away.
I worked in a major city. There was talk around the office that one of the large office buildings in our city might be a target for an attack. It was a 5 to 10 minute drive away. Before lunch, we were allowed to go home. Mark wasn't released from work early, a point I held against his company for a long time.
At home, I sat glued to the small TV in our computer room (I'm not sure why I didn't watch the bigger living room TV?) I heard all the speculation about who might be attacking us and why. I cried. And cried. And. Cried.
Months later, I watched the Diane Sawyer special about the children who were still in their mother's wombs on 9/11, and had lost their fathers. Children who would never know their dads in person. I don't think I have ever felt as sad about anything before that special. I couldn't imagine their loss, their mothers' loss, their siblings' loss.
Security is a fleeting feeling. Before the events of 9/11, I felt very secure as an American. That day has changed my perception forever. It gave me a much greater understanding of what prior generations have felt when the first atomic bomb was dropped, or when JFK was assassined. It is a day whose events will color my world from now on.
My kids weren't alive on September 11th, 2001. But they will hear about the events of 9/11 for many years to come. It will be in their high school history books. They will come to learn about the events of that day and the impact on the entire world. But they won't have the same feeling about it as I do, because I was a witness.
I just pray that the kids of today don't have their own "9/11" to take their security away.
------------------------
Go see Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer for links to many more September 11th stories.
4 comments:
It's a good thing that they weren't witnesses. A lot of children's childhoods were disrupted because of this. I remember being scared that the "bad people" would come and kidnap my parents. I didn't realize that the Americans kidnapped were already in Iraq to begin with. That was nothing compared to 9/11.
Nice post.
I am starting to get really blurry after looking at so many blogs.
my remember is up
Wow! No offense, but no one or company I know of got to leave work early on 9/11. Lucky you. Although I'm not sure how lucky that actually is. Being at work kept me from watching it on TV all day.
The total experience of 9/11 has already been lost, and it's up to us to relate it to future generations. It wasn't just one day--the fear and shock and depression and general funk lasted for weeks. There were all those anthrax letters and nobody knew who would get one next. That doesn't get a mention anymore, and it's still an unsolved case. Then news stories about threats from small planes, and perhaps plots to spread anthrax by crop dusters. There were more layers to 9/11 than just those planes in NY, DC & PA. I'll never forget any of it.
Post a Comment