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.
