Nine years ago, I had just gotten the girls on the bus for school when I sat down to watch the morning news. I sat there dumbfounded watching the screen and trying to make sense out of what I was seeing. The first plane had gone into the Towers, but there was still confusion over what had happened. Nobody really knew just yet.
I called my sister, because she used to be a stock broker. She knew several of the people in the Salomon Smith Barney office. I didn't know, if she had heard, and I needed someone to talk to. She quickly turned her television on, and we watched in quiet horror as the second plane hit. We wondered what was happening to our country and what would come of our nation when we saw the devastation at the Pentagon. We were were sat in stunned silence when we heard about United Flight 93 going down in the Pennsylvania field and how valiantly our American brothers and sisters fought to save others.
Time stood still while terror gripped our hearts wondering where it would strike next. I remember feeling like a zombie for several days. I remember I never cried and thinking it was strange that I didn't cry, but I was just...numb. I've cried many times since then, but I think it was a coping mechanism at the time. I needed to be strong for my kids, so they wouldn't see exactly how scared I really was. And I think I was afraid, if I started crying I might not stop.
Nine years later, and my heart still hurts.
Shortly after the attacks on our beautiful USA, Alan Jackson wrote and released "Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning).
It's still such a fitting tribute.
It helps me remember.
May we never forget.
September 11, was a tragic day to be sure , and I pray for the families of the ones lost , and the soldiers who continue to fight. May all of us continue the fight to prove once and for all that terror will not overcome good in the world. The day holds doubly hard memories for me as that is also the very day we nearly lost my sister into the depths of mental illness. She is now recovered and doing well,but we as a family remember the fear and are ever vigilant to protect her and help if need be agian
ReplyDeleteI remember exactly where I was. I was standing next to the dishwasher and the radio interrupted its scheduled programmed music to announce this. I didn't even believe it. I turned off the radio.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading tributes today, and yours is terrific. Love hearing where everybody was when they heard the news.
I was going to post about this, as well.
ReplyDeleteThere are only two things that I remember where I was when I heard the news - Princess Diana's death two days after my 18th birthday, and September 11.
I turned my TV on as I was getting ready for work. Whatever channel I had left it on the night before had the one Trade Tower on there. My first (very brief) thought was that there was a fire there, but once I read the caption on the tv, I knew that it was more than a fire. I watched live in horror as the second plane drove into the second tower.
I don't remember when exactly the newscasters said this was terrorism, but once they did, all I could think was that "we've been attacked". It didn't (and still doesn't) matter that this happened to the US and I live in Canada. Our countries are very closely intertwined, so it felt to me as though this attack happened to all of us.
Unfortunately I had to go to work, and we did not have internet (or radio) at work, so any updates we got were brought to us by customers.
I watched a bit of "102 minutes that changed America" last night on the History channel, it was some raw footage that they had collected from civilians who were there. It crushed my heart just as bad as the day that it happened as I sat on my couch, not yet married for even a month, trying to understand what I was seeing.
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