I will never forget
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This post seems trivial and meaningless as I read over it. I wasn’t in New York on Sept. 11 and I don’t directly know anyone who passed away on that day, but I wanted to share my heart a bit with you today and I’d like you to share your heart with me in the comments. Where were you? Where were your children? Do you think it is possible to ever forget that day in our history after having lived through it? I wasn’t affected directly, but like so many, I was forever changed.
We had been listening to a cassette tape of Bear In The Big Blue House. It had a song on it that Brady and I listened to each morning on the way to take him to my mother’s house so I could get to class. Ricky worked in Huntsville so he went one way and I headed the other, for my hour and a half commute to Florence, Alabama four days a week. Fortunately, Mama’s was a good halfway point so my two year old didn’t have to sit in the car nearly as long.
As the last strains of our song played, I hit eject to listen to the radio a bit in the last ten minutes or so until we got to Mama’s house. I turned it up when they were talking about the plane and listened intently, taking a minute or two to catch up on the details and figure out why everyone sounded so strained.
My first thought was disbelief. It just had to be one of those War of the World things. I felt anger rolling inside me at what I thought must be a sick joke, but they dj’s continued, so I called Mama. “Can you turn on the tv? They’re saying an airplane flew into the world trade center.” Mama asked “Huh? I haven’t heard anything about that. When? ” As she was turning the channels, I was slightly relieved, thinking if she didn’t know about it then it was most likely a joke. She found it a moment later and sat down to gather all of the details as we both sat silently on the phone together. “Oh Christy, I see it. It’s awful.”
“Are you serious? So it’s really real?” We had a minute or two to discuss what could have possibly caused it, our first thought went to it being some freakish radar glitch that caused the pilots to miscalculate…and then Mama said “Oh God, another one just went in!”
I was at her house a minute or two later with Brady and we both sat down in front of the tv while he toddled over to a familiar bucket of toys in her living room. It wasn’t long before we realized the sinister truth of the plane crashes as other events began to unfold.
I called my professor and said “What am I supposed to do? Do I come to class? Are they closing the university?” It was silly to worry about missing class but I was still in shock. She told me to be wherever I needed to be, so I told her I needed to be with Brady and spent the day at my mother’s house watching the horror unfold, each of us taking breaks to play with Brady, fix his lunch, and spend a few minutes pretending everything was alright for the two year old who had no idea everything wasn’t.
That night I finally drove home with Brady and put him to bed but there was no way I could sleep. Ricky had been watching all day at his work and he and I sat down together, going over the news and wondering what would happen next. Watching the people jump off again and again in replayed footage. The pain of an entire country seemed to hang in the air and we found ourselves unable to sleep, like so many of the rest of the world.
Instead, I spent a few hours writing a letter to my son. I needed him to know what happened, how it felt at that moment, what it was really like. I wanted him to understand in a way that a kid looking back and reading about it in a history book just wouldn’t. I wrote him for over an hour, ending up with a 30+ page letter describing just where he was and what was going through his mother’s mind when the planes hit. I tried to explain the pain, the fear, the tragedy and the loss. I explained what it was like seeing those people jump. I explained what it was like seeing the people doing all they could to rescue others. I described the firefighters, the policeman, the people in the street, how they all turned into heroes that day. I did the best I could to give him an account of what that day in his life was like through the eyes of his mother. How we all held our breath and waited to see where the next attack would take place. How I looked outside and wondered where I could possibly run with my beautiful little baby to keep him safe.
When I’d ran out of words and realized that some emotions just couldn’t be expressed- I sealed that letter, wrote his name on the front, and dated it 9-11-2029, deciding that he needed to be close to the age I was when I wrote it before my words would be able to carry the weight I needed them to. I couldn’t help but hope that by the time he did read it, our world would be so very different from that day that the violence and horror would seem foreign to him outside of my letter.
A few weeks later we took Brady to the Nashville Zoo. As we were walking around we heard a plane fly over and Ricky and I both froze in place and looked at each other while we held our breath and scanned the horizon. I’ll never forget that feeling in the pit of my stomach as I clutched Brady’s tiny hand and said a silent prayer until the sound of the plane engine dissipated. Even now, whenever I hear a plane fly over the house in the quiet hours of evening I hold my breath. I know many of you do the same.
We made a lot of promises ten years ago, one of the key ones being that we would never forget but if you were alive ten years ago. I can’t imagine we could ever possibly forget exactly where we were and what that day was like.
In honor of all who lost their lives on September 11th, God Bless America.
I remember.
PS…Most of those guys I sent out that morning did not come home that night. It gives me some comfort knowing that I might have been the last person to smile at them before they died.
God Bless YOU.
I was at work at the Certified First Responder Unit of the FDNY in
Queens New York. We had about 100 firefighters in class that morning taking their CFR Refresher. I always kept a watchman on my desk because we started so early in the morning that I never got to see the news at home before work. At about 9:45 AM my Watchman picture got fuzzy with a lot of snow. The only other time it got like that was when they hit the tower in 93. I jokingly said to someone sitting at her desk near me “now who’s trying to take out the World Trade Center”? My co worker just turned her head and didn’t say anything, until 1 minute later when the news caster came on and said that a plane had hit the North Tower. She looked at me and said “don’t say another word”. I was shocked to say the least. I left my office and went upstairs to the officer’s room. There were a few standing around watching the big tv that was on the ceiling. We had the sound turned down and the two way radios turned up. When the second plane hit some of the officers thought it was instant replay…until they realized that both building were burning. The sound coming over the radio was total chaos.
After the second plane hit the firefighters came up into the officers room and said that they had to leave. I signed them out and kept telling them all to be careful and wished them good luck.
After they left we went around the building and started to put together packages of gloves, masks and any other medical equipment we had because we were in the EMS building. We had neighboring buildings coming in to us looking for supplies, the Police Dept Canine Unit came in for stuff, the Coast Guard and a few other agencies that were stationed near us. I guess they figured that we’d be the most likely ones to have medical supplies being that we were the EMS part of the FDNY.
When the towers collapsed there were about 4 of us left in the building (we were civilians and not allowed to go downtown). We stood there watching in disbelief. I was sitting on a table next to one of the electricians who had found his way over to our building. At the time I didn’t know I was leaning on him and I had my head on his shoulder. All I remembered was a pair of sneakers and jeans on the person next to me. I didn’t find out until a few months later that It was Ray the electrician.
The next morning we civilians were put on the family lines answering family questions who were looking for lost firefighters. I had a 13 page list of names and I was given instructions that if someone called and the name was listed as DOA I had to pass the call on to a counsellor. I did that for two days before I cracked and told my Lieutenant that I couldn’t do it anymore. He took me off the phones and I went back to our office and started to pull the names of the dead out of our files.
It was a week that I will never forget. It has effected me greatly. I’m depressed a lot. I cry easily now, I hear a plane and I can’t move until it passes over me. I sometimes have trouble sleeping, and although I’ve gone for counselling it still comes back to haunt me with a vengence at this time of the year. I’m sick for a month before and a month after 9/11 because it all comes back. I can still hear it, smell it and feel it. I fear that it will never leave me. I’m retired now but I still duck when planes go by and I still have that cloud over me. Hopefully some day I’ll wake up and it’ll be gone but for now, 10 years later it’s still with me. PTSD is no fun I can tell you that.
I was a 1411 operator (Information) on 9/11/01. I was walking into the breakroom to put my stuff up for my shift, when I looked at Good Morning America, they were just announcing that a plane had hit the WTC building. There was no footage yet, they (as well as I) were thinking it was a small plane, maybe the pilot had a heart attack or something. I walked into the workroom, told my supervisor about it, and started taking calls. About 10 minutes later, I had to go back to my locker for something, again, GMA was announcing that a plane had hit the WTC. I stood and was watching a live shot, then the 2nd plane hit. My mouth dropped open. It was no accident, this was something major going on.
I went back into the workroom and told my supervisor about it again. I started taking calls again. They brought a TV set into the room, made an announcement to us, and tried to keep us updated. We immediately started getting calls from people wanting #’s for thier son’s/daughter’s/mother’s/father’s office. They were getting nothing but busy signals, was there any alternate #’s? Then we were being updated by the customers on the line. One announced that the Pentagon had been hit too! Now the White House was a target! We started getting calls from New York. Once the WTC towers went down, they lost their cell fone links, and they were re-routed to us in Dallas, Tx and other areas.
People were calling in, and just crying, they couldn’t talk. They were calling in to ask us to pray for their friends/family in the WTC towers. They were calling in to get the school #’s for their kids. People were in a panic. It was awful. They pulled men out of our room to be guards at the doors. They weren’t letting us go home unless we lived a mile or 2 away. They knew that most wouldn’t return for several days because of the widespread panic & fear. We were working doubles, and it was exhausting. Not because of the work, but because of the pain & despair everyone was in. We normally would take between 1500 -2000 calls a day. We jumped to close to 5000 or more calls a day. I will never forget it.
I happened to live just a block away from my job, so I was allowed to go home, I had several co-workers go w/me so they could get a break. My 78 yr old mother was at home by herself, and cried all week, all she could see on TV was the WTC falling & people jumping to thier death rather than being burned alive. There were no cars on the roads, all airlines had been ordered to the ground. It was quiet as a tomb. Only the sounds of nature could be heard. It was an eery thing. It was more than a week later before we were not on double shifts anymore. I don’t remember much of that week outside of my job. I would wake up talking to customers in my sleep & crying. No, I will never forget it.
The pain that those family members of all who died that day in New York, at the Pentagon, and the plane that went down in the field, was felt by many others who had never met them. I talked to thousands who were grieving for their loved ones. I will never forget it.
I was on my break at the elementary school where I taught at the time. I had taken my first-grade class to the cafeteria and dropped them off when one of the other teachers told me to turn on my classroom tv. I remember chills covering me from head to toe as I watched the first plane hit. I’ll never forget it.
I was at work when I found out. I called my two children, both college students, and told them to turn on the t.v. Then I tried frantically to reach my husband in Pakistan. You see, two ladies from our church had been captured by the Taliban a little over a month earlier. My husband was working with the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan to try to get them released. 9/11 happened and the whole atmosphere in Pakistan changed. No taxi would give him a ride. People became very anti-U.S. My husband had to be very cautious where he went and the route he took. Fortunately a desk clerk at his hotel befriended him and would tell him where demonstrations were scheduled for that day, so my husband could avoid those places. For 11 weeks he was there and we didn’t know what the next day held. Finally, by God’s grace and the skill of the U.S. military, the girls were rescued. My husband returned to the U.S. the day before Thanksgiving. And what a Thanksgiving we had!
I was a senior in high school when it happened. I was sitting in economics class, when the teacher from across the hall came in and asked our teacher to come into the hallway. She came back in teary-eyed and asked the whole class to come with her across the hallway, because “something historic” had just occurred and we needed to see it on the news. The first plane had hit, and by the next class period we knew it wasn’t an accident. Classes were cancelled mid-day, and we all went home to be with our families. A mother of one of the workers killed at the Pentagon lived in my small hometown. I’ll always think of September 11th as signaling the end of my childhood. I had several friends in my graduating class who enlisted or went into ROTC, and I’m sure 9/11 had quite a bit to do with it.
I was at home with my daughter, who had just turned 7 months old. My husband was on jury duty and he called me while I was feeding her breakfast and told me a plane had crashed into the WTC. I remember that the first thing I said was, “On purpose?” It was so far beyond the reach of my imagination. I watched the TV for a little while before heading to Bible study. I was just pulling into my grandmother’s driveway when the first tower collapsed. At the time, the son of one of our church friends was serving on the USS Enterprise; the ship was in the Middle East shortly afterward (I think they were in the Med at the time of the attack). I spent the day watching the TV and thinking, “Some day I’m going to have to figure out a way to explain all of this to that sweet baby girl sleeping in her bed, and I don’t have any idea how to do that.”
I was at home, but due to work the 2nd shift as an R.N. for a Blood Center in N.J. collecting blood. When I arrived, I was both surprised and shocked to see crowds of people standing outside our building entrance waiting to donate blood. There were so many people in the lobby, it was hard for be to get through.
We collected so much blood that day and the next day all staff had to come in early and scheduled a mandatory 8:00am to 8:00pm.
A local Starbucks store donated a huge carafe of coffee/ snacks and came back to refill it. a Also, a tent was donated for the people waiting outside.
As an update for today: I still work at the same Blood Center, and at our Blood Drive today we got 80 % more donors than was booked today; many blood donors had stories to share of their experience with 9/11.