I started
this post last week, and didn't have the emotional strength to finish it.
I'll attempt to do that now.
****************************
I can't believe it's been 10 years. It's so hard to imagine, when the memories in my mind are so fresh, so real, so vivid.
I remember a few "big event" things in my life very vividly - one of them is the day the Challenger space shuttle blew up. I was in elementary school (2nd or 3rd grade, I think), and we were all taken into the cafeteria, where they had the televisions set up to allow us to watch the takeoff. I also remember where I was when I learned when Princess Diana was in a car crash. I remember where I was when I was watching OJ Simpson lead the LA police in a slow car chase. With the exception of the Challenger, most of the things I remember are small. Inconsequential. Meaningless, really, in the scope of reality.
Like so many, I will NEVER forget where I was when I learned about the awful attacks on America on September 11th. At the time, Levi and I were living together in my grandparents house in my hometown of Syracuse, NY (upstate, about 4 hours northwest of NYC). We had spent the summer working with my family to renovate the house - we were so proud to keep that house in the family, and to keep traditions alive. I was working as an administrative assistant for a construction company. The jobs were just getting started, so there was a lot of paperwork and busy work to take care of. Our offices were located in an older school building that was now being used to house the bus garage. Our office was in a converted kindergarten classroom, completely with small benches, tiny toilets, and pint-sized cubby-holes. It was very, um, unique. :)
On that fateful morning, I remember getting an email from my friend, Kevin. He had sent it out to a group of us, telling us he thought a plane just hit the WTC. I deleted it, and I remember thinking that there's no way Air Traffic Control would ever let that happen - being a former flight attendant who used to fly in and out of NYC all the time, I was sure that this was false information. NYC would never allow something like that to happen. I deleted the email, dismissed it, and went on with my day.
A few minutes later, I headed to the restroom (regular people sized...) and passed the bus garage. The mechanics were all huddled around the small tv they had for background noise. I walked in and asked them what was up - just in time to see the other plane hit the other tower. Oh my God. I was frozen. Completely shocked.
I don't think I ever made it to the restroom that morning. I walked back to our office, told my bosses that they needed to get in here, now, and walked back to the garage. There were a total of about 10 of us huddled around this teeny television, trying to learn as much as we could. More information came in about a potential attack on the Pentagon, and a missing plane that may have crashed into a field in PA. Living in upstate NY at the time, that was WAY too close to home. I was terrified. We all were.
I remember trying to call my parents, Levi, my brothers. None of the phones would work. The phone lines were completely jammed, no doubt by others doing the very same thing. When I finally made it through to my parents, I was in tears. I just needed to hear their voices. I made sure my brothers were ok, and I finally got in touch with Levi. Mark (my boss) and I tried to go about our day, but we were both glued to our computers. CNN.com was timing out - if one of us made it through the refresh process, we kept the other updated. We had the radio on, but none of the stations played music. All stations focused on the events at hand, speculating who. What. Where. When. WHY?
After a few hours, I drove home. Sitting in the office was futile. I needed to be with my family. I needed to hug them, see for myself that they were okay. As I was on my way home, I listened to more accounts of the stories, more speculation, more attempts to answer the questions we all had.
I don't remember many specifics beyond that. The next few hours were a blur of tears, fears, watching the tv, and trying to digest the fact that America had just been attacked. Living on the East Coast, there was a constant fear (for months) that any plane off track had been hijacked. Being a New Yorker, I felt personally violated. Every day, you heard stories about people who lost loved ones. People who were feverishly searching for a missing brother, sister, mother, husband, child. You saw people breaking down in the middle of stores, overcome with emotion. For months, fear and pride dominated our lives.
For me, the most potent moments came after 9/11. My brother had just graduated from high school that summer. One of his good friends had just left for NYU. She was at park-type area in between the Trade Centers on 9/11. As the first plane hit, a man pushed her out of the way of falling debris. She escaped with no injuries. That man became a parapalegic. Every few days, I learned that a friend lost a cousin, or someone lost a brother, or someone was headed down to NYC to look for a person. It was heart-wrenching.
The big thing for Levi and I? Well, two things. First - a year earlier, Levi had been working in NYC every week. He drove down to Jersey on Sunday night, shacked up in a hotel, and took the subway and train into the city every night for their work. In the morning, as they waited for the train to get there, they had breakfast in a cafe in the below-ground area of the Trade buildings. Had he not been laid off several months earlier, he would have been IN the trade center buildings when the planes hit. Talk about a life-changing event. Thank goodness for the Verizon strike in 2000. We later found out that two of his former co-workers lost their lives that day. Levi still has guilt - he feels like he should have been there to help his friends. He feels like he could have helped save some lives, had he been there. While I appreciate his thoughts, I'm *so grateful* he wasn't there.
The second big thing for Levi and I? 11 days after 9/11 (one year to the day after my grandfather passed away), I found out I was pregnant. My first reaction was that I didn't want to bring a child into this violent world. I was terrified - even 11 days after the event, there was still this very real fear of when the next attack would be. There was a very heightened sense of anything out of the ordinary, And, we were going to bring a child into that environment? I was petrified.
Obviously, things progressed, we made peace with what happened in our lives, and my pregnancy (and our hurried nuptials) started to take center stage. For us, it became a beacon of hope in a time where there was very little hope to be had.
We got up early yesterday to watch the ceremonies in NYC, and to participate in the moments of silence. There were many tears shed in our house yesterday morning; it's hard to watch the children call out their parents' names, hard to watch a parents call out their child's name. Hard to listen to the world go silent when we remember the first plane hit, the second plane hit. It's been so hard to watch the recaps and the replays of the new coverage. I often noticed that my heart was racing while watching these shows...it's as if it was happening all over again. I know it was ten years ago, and I have ten years of life experiences to separate me from the events of that morning. And yet, it truly was like I was living it all over again, for the first time. That sense of fear, and horror, and shock, and overall dread.
We chose to spend the day with our family yesterday, and just enjoy what time we have together. We attended the unveiling of a memorial in the City of Surprise yesterday morning - it was short and sweet, and at the end, as the bagpipers played "Amazing Grace," they pulled the veil off a glass case enclosing a piece of the towers in NYC. Etched on the glass enclosure are the names of the heroes from the NYPD, NYFD, and Port Authority that lost their lives that day. It's a beautiful memorial, simple and honest.
This memorial was hard on the kids - Kevin couldn't understand what was going on. For that, I'm grateful. 5 years old isn't close to being old enough to understand the magnitude of what happened that day. Hell, I don't know if 25 (the age I was 10 years ago) is old enough. Quite frankly, I'm not sure 35 is any better, to be honest.
Julia spent a lot of time watching the coverage and asking a lot of questions. They've covered 9/11 in school in the past, but it was very casual and a very high level overview. I wasn't sure how I was going to handle Julia's questions this year. I took my cues from here - I answered questions she asked, I let her turn the channel when she wanted, but I also let her watch what she wanted. We talked about where we all were on that day, and I told her that I found out a few days later that I was pregnant with her. She had questions, and one of the most poignant was whether she brought up bad memories because I found out so soon after 9/11 that I was having her. It was a really amazing parenting moment to be able to tell her truthfully that being pregnant gave me hope when I was having trouble finding any. Her pregnancy gave us something positive and wonderful to look forward to - that's what I told her, and that's what I felt. Her smile was worth every tear yesterday morning.
I know people here in the Southwest didn't feel the effects of 9/11 the same way East Coasters did, and that's okay. The sense of family with other East Coasters when talking about 9/11 is a feeling unlike any other - it's a group none of us want to be part of, but each of us are fiercely proud of. (Kind of like cancer, now that I think of it...)
And with that, I vow to try to live my life in a manner that will make the heroes of that day and the days since proud of me, proud of America, and proud of what they sacrificed that day. To the heroes in the world (including FD, PD, first responders, veterans, active military current and future, and the families of all those amazing people), thank you for all that you do. I hope I make you proud.
****************************
I can't believe it's been 10 years. It's so hard to imagine, when the memories in my mind are so fresh, so real, so vivid.
I remember a few "big event" things in my life very vividly - one of them is the day the Challenger space shuttle blew up. I was in elementary school (2nd or 3rd grade, I think), and we were all taken into the cafeteria, where they had the televisions set up to allow us to watch the takeoff. I also remember where I was when I learned when Princess Diana was in a car crash. I remember where I was when I was watching OJ Simpson lead the LA police in a slow car chase. With the exception of the Challenger, most of the things I remember are small. Inconsequential. Meaningless, really, in the scope of reality.
Like so many, I will NEVER forget where I was when I learned about the awful attacks on America on September 11th. At the time, Levi and I were living together in my grandparents house in my hometown of Syracuse, NY (upstate, about 4 hours northwest of NYC). We had spent the summer working with my family to renovate the house - we were so proud to keep that house in the family, and to keep traditions alive. I was working as an administrative assistant for a construction company. The jobs were just getting started, so there was a lot of paperwork and busy work to take care of. Our offices were located in an older school building that was now being used to house the bus garage. Our office was in a converted kindergarten classroom, completely with small benches, tiny toilets, and pint-sized cubby-holes. It was very, um, unique. :)
On that fateful morning, I remember getting an email from my friend, Kevin. He had sent it out to a group of us, telling us he thought a plane just hit the WTC. I deleted it, and I remember thinking that there's no way Air Traffic Control would ever let that happen - being a former flight attendant who used to fly in and out of NYC all the time, I was sure that this was false information. NYC would never allow something like that to happen. I deleted the email, dismissed it, and went on with my day.
A few minutes later, I headed to the restroom (regular people sized...) and passed the bus garage. The mechanics were all huddled around the small tv they had for background noise. I walked in and asked them what was up - just in time to see the other plane hit the other tower. Oh my God. I was frozen. Completely shocked.
I don't think I ever made it to the restroom that morning. I walked back to our office, told my bosses that they needed to get in here, now, and walked back to the garage. There were a total of about 10 of us huddled around this teeny television, trying to learn as much as we could. More information came in about a potential attack on the Pentagon, and a missing plane that may have crashed into a field in PA. Living in upstate NY at the time, that was WAY too close to home. I was terrified. We all were.
I remember trying to call my parents, Levi, my brothers. None of the phones would work. The phone lines were completely jammed, no doubt by others doing the very same thing. When I finally made it through to my parents, I was in tears. I just needed to hear their voices. I made sure my brothers were ok, and I finally got in touch with Levi. Mark (my boss) and I tried to go about our day, but we were both glued to our computers. CNN.com was timing out - if one of us made it through the refresh process, we kept the other updated. We had the radio on, but none of the stations played music. All stations focused on the events at hand, speculating who. What. Where. When. WHY?
After a few hours, I drove home. Sitting in the office was futile. I needed to be with my family. I needed to hug them, see for myself that they were okay. As I was on my way home, I listened to more accounts of the stories, more speculation, more attempts to answer the questions we all had.
I don't remember many specifics beyond that. The next few hours were a blur of tears, fears, watching the tv, and trying to digest the fact that America had just been attacked. Living on the East Coast, there was a constant fear (for months) that any plane off track had been hijacked. Being a New Yorker, I felt personally violated. Every day, you heard stories about people who lost loved ones. People who were feverishly searching for a missing brother, sister, mother, husband, child. You saw people breaking down in the middle of stores, overcome with emotion. For months, fear and pride dominated our lives.
For me, the most potent moments came after 9/11. My brother had just graduated from high school that summer. One of his good friends had just left for NYU. She was at park-type area in between the Trade Centers on 9/11. As the first plane hit, a man pushed her out of the way of falling debris. She escaped with no injuries. That man became a parapalegic. Every few days, I learned that a friend lost a cousin, or someone lost a brother, or someone was headed down to NYC to look for a person. It was heart-wrenching.
The big thing for Levi and I? Well, two things. First - a year earlier, Levi had been working in NYC every week. He drove down to Jersey on Sunday night, shacked up in a hotel, and took the subway and train into the city every night for their work. In the morning, as they waited for the train to get there, they had breakfast in a cafe in the below-ground area of the Trade buildings. Had he not been laid off several months earlier, he would have been IN the trade center buildings when the planes hit. Talk about a life-changing event. Thank goodness for the Verizon strike in 2000. We later found out that two of his former co-workers lost their lives that day. Levi still has guilt - he feels like he should have been there to help his friends. He feels like he could have helped save some lives, had he been there. While I appreciate his thoughts, I'm *so grateful* he wasn't there.
The second big thing for Levi and I? 11 days after 9/11 (one year to the day after my grandfather passed away), I found out I was pregnant. My first reaction was that I didn't want to bring a child into this violent world. I was terrified - even 11 days after the event, there was still this very real fear of when the next attack would be. There was a very heightened sense of anything out of the ordinary, And, we were going to bring a child into that environment? I was petrified.
Obviously, things progressed, we made peace with what happened in our lives, and my pregnancy (and our hurried nuptials) started to take center stage. For us, it became a beacon of hope in a time where there was very little hope to be had.
We got up early yesterday to watch the ceremonies in NYC, and to participate in the moments of silence. There were many tears shed in our house yesterday morning; it's hard to watch the children call out their parents' names, hard to watch a parents call out their child's name. Hard to listen to the world go silent when we remember the first plane hit, the second plane hit. It's been so hard to watch the recaps and the replays of the new coverage. I often noticed that my heart was racing while watching these shows...it's as if it was happening all over again. I know it was ten years ago, and I have ten years of life experiences to separate me from the events of that morning. And yet, it truly was like I was living it all over again, for the first time. That sense of fear, and horror, and shock, and overall dread.
We chose to spend the day with our family yesterday, and just enjoy what time we have together. We attended the unveiling of a memorial in the City of Surprise yesterday morning - it was short and sweet, and at the end, as the bagpipers played "Amazing Grace," they pulled the veil off a glass case enclosing a piece of the towers in NYC. Etched on the glass enclosure are the names of the heroes from the NYPD, NYFD, and Port Authority that lost their lives that day. It's a beautiful memorial, simple and honest.
This memorial was hard on the kids - Kevin couldn't understand what was going on. For that, I'm grateful. 5 years old isn't close to being old enough to understand the magnitude of what happened that day. Hell, I don't know if 25 (the age I was 10 years ago) is old enough. Quite frankly, I'm not sure 35 is any better, to be honest.
Julia spent a lot of time watching the coverage and asking a lot of questions. They've covered 9/11 in school in the past, but it was very casual and a very high level overview. I wasn't sure how I was going to handle Julia's questions this year. I took my cues from here - I answered questions she asked, I let her turn the channel when she wanted, but I also let her watch what she wanted. We talked about where we all were on that day, and I told her that I found out a few days later that I was pregnant with her. She had questions, and one of the most poignant was whether she brought up bad memories because I found out so soon after 9/11 that I was having her. It was a really amazing parenting moment to be able to tell her truthfully that being pregnant gave me hope when I was having trouble finding any. Her pregnancy gave us something positive and wonderful to look forward to - that's what I told her, and that's what I felt. Her smile was worth every tear yesterday morning.
I know people here in the Southwest didn't feel the effects of 9/11 the same way East Coasters did, and that's okay. The sense of family with other East Coasters when talking about 9/11 is a feeling unlike any other - it's a group none of us want to be part of, but each of us are fiercely proud of. (Kind of like cancer, now that I think of it...)
And with that, I vow to try to live my life in a manner that will make the heroes of that day and the days since proud of me, proud of America, and proud of what they sacrificed that day. To the heroes in the world (including FD, PD, first responders, veterans, active military current and future, and the families of all those amazing people), thank you for all that you do. I hope I make you proud.
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