It's hard to believe it's been five years since the 9/11 attacks. In some ways, it feels as if time has stood still.
I live about 45 miles North of NYC. My husband was in midtown that morning and it was a twist of fate that he was not across the street from the towers. It was just like any other September day, but Sept 11, 2001 was special. As I walked from my car into my building, I distinctly remember how beautiful the weather was. There was not a could in the blue sky and it there was a slight crispness to the morning. I remember thinking it reminded me of our wedding day (Sept 13th) and what a picture perfect day with bright blue skies.
A little before 9AM, the day takes a terrible turn when my brother in law, who works for the same company (and right down the hall) instant messages me to tell me a plane hit one of the towers. I did not think much of it. I thought it was an accident, a small plane clipped a huge building-minimal damage and impact. I turned on the radio and started to hear traffic reports and the traffic guys in the helicopter talking about raging fires and major damage to the first tower. Now people are talking about it in the halls. We hear the second tower was hit. We all knew at that instant, it was no accident and we were the target of an attack. I heard of the attacks in Washington and feared they would attack every major city in the US within hours.
Things started to get kaotic even about my office in the suburbs. People trying to reach family and friends, parents leaving work to pick up their kids at school, women getting hysterical.
I will never forget watching the first tower fall. We had gotten two TV in the main lobby of IBM where I worked and dozens were gathering around. It was our first chance to see with our own eyes what had really happened. We saw the first tower fall in front of our eyes as if it were a planed implosion. EVERYONE gasped and screamed, so unprepared for what was happening.
My best friend found me in front of the monitors and started screaming "Where is Jerry?"
I had trouble reaching my husband as cell phone circuits were all busy. I did hear from him later and found out his meeting in lower Manhattan was cancelled, and he was near Grand Central Station (which I feared was a target) and was just trapped as no trains were running on the Metro North. She said we should leave work in case they declare a state of emergency and close all the highways, so we packed up our laptops and left for home.
I wanted my husband to walk over the 59th Street Bridge and into Queens to his grandmother's apartment in Astoria. It was a nice day and he was young-he could do it. He was considering it and then the trains started running and he managed to get on one of the first trains to White Plains.
Once he was home, we were just glued to the TV. I was not really working. People were calling like crazy to check if Jerry was OK. We were calling lots of people as well to check on how their friends and family were. We were in shock, watching over and over again the horrific images of the planes going through the towers, people jumping from the buildings, and the two building falling to pieces. I had nightmares about these images for weeks. I think the people jumping out of windows bothered me the most. I gulp every time I see a plane go through one of the towers.
I had bowling league that night. It was the 2nd week of the season and I was hoping they would cancel-but they did not. The mood was somber, quite a few women did not show and all we talked about was what happened. I don't know if we understood the magnitude of what happened.
We were lucky, a twist of fate kept us safe. Our close friends and family were also unaffected. Others were not so lucky. Six people (some quite young) died that day from my small town.
Many friends lost loved ones and their bodies never recovered. For months and months, the obituaries of our newspaper were full of 9/11 victims, mostly young people. The impact was felt for months and months without a chance to catch our breath.
I cried today for so many reasons-the thousands of innocent lives lost, our nations loss of security and innocence, how my daughter will never visit the twin towers and how I will have to explain to her what evil too place there. So many stories of people who missed a flight that day or called in sick for the first time in years. They were saved. So many stories of people who had a meeting in one of the towers or came in early to get some work done.
I think 9/11 should me made a National holiday. I feel it should be a National day of mouring. Nobody was upbeat. It was a somber day. Some people took off to go to memorials of former co workers. The years may have passed, but in so many ways it was like a wound being opened all over again. 9/11 taught me to live every day as if it were your last and "when you get the choice to sit it out or dance-I hope you dance!"
Five years have passed. I have a different job and a wonderful daughter. In many ways, my life has changed. Time stood still today, it may as well have been 2001. I felt like today somebody ripped a band aid off of me and exposed an old open wound. Today, like every day in the past five years, this nation has lived with this permanent wound. It hurts today more than other days. We lost our innocence as a nation and we must live with that every single day forever more.
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