I remember it like it was yesterday, and I know that we all do. I remember being a sophmore in college... class had only started at the end of the previous week. I was a work-study... and office clerk, and it was to be my second day on the job. I had gotten up and was eating cereal, switching through the channels looking for something watch. I stopped on the Today Show because I always used to watch it before school back then, but nothing interesting was on. Katie Couric and Matt Lauer were bantering about something that wasn't interesting me... so I switched over to a tape of the Young and the Restless I had recorded the day before.
It was a few minutes later, when my sister rushed into my room, and said "turn on the news! Put it on the Today Show... or Good Morning America or something! You won't believe what happened!" I remember being irritated with her, and exclaiming "Why? I was just watching it a few minutes ago! There can't possibly be anything interesting in the last few minutes." My jaw dropped as I switched back to the Today Show, and they were showing live shots of the gaping, fiery hole in the the first building to be struck.
I just remember my sister and I talking about the poor people on that plane who were surely dead... and then about the poor people on those floors that the plane crashed in to. I remember my sister saying what a "horrible accident" it was... and I just stared at the tv in disbelief. I said to Tiffany, "I don't know. I mean... it's horrible... but, how can you not see a building like that? God... it's awful."
Little did we both realize, that in a matter of a couple of minutes, we would both see, on live tv, a second plane hit the other tower. I remember gasping in horror, while my sister said "Oh my God!!! Another plane? What's going on? How can there be two accidents like this? Are the radars not working?" I just shook my head, and said in a really small voice, "Tiff... it's not an accident... whatever this is, it isn't an accident. It's something really, really, horrible... but, someone did this on purpose. But... God!"
The rest day was a blur. I remember looking down at my soggy Frosted Flakes, realizing I was going to be late for work, and that it wasn't going to make a good impression on my second day. I remember my mom dropping me off on campus, and on the way to school, us both talking in disbelief about what was happening... and how there reports about a few other planes being hijacked... that they could hit anywhere. Later at work, I remember one of the secretaries being nervous because her son was in the Marines, and she thought that whatever was occuring, it meant that her son would be sent to a future war.
Finally, I remember school being canceled a little before noon. There was a call from the university big wigs in Ann Arbor that said the Flint campus must close immediately, because the campus sits right next to a federal building, and it wasn't safe for students. It was the strangest thing, walking out of work, and walking down to the main plaza on campus... seeing people leave like a mass exodus. We were all nervous, all scared, and all in disbelief.
I remember going home and not being able to take my eyes off the television. For hours, I sat in disbelief and horror... not believing that both towers were now simply rubble. It was finally in the early evening, watching families of victims crying on the television, holding up posters with their loved one's faces on it... asking if anyone had seen their daughter or husband or father... when I just couldn't handle it anymore. I remember frantically changing the channels, looking for just one network that wasn't airing footage. The only network I couild find that had regular programming was the Game Show Network. My brain needed a break, but even as I knew that, I felt guilty for watching an old re-run of Match Game.
I remember crying myself to sleep that night. I remember waking up in the morning, thinking that the day before must have been a horrible dream. When I realized it wasn't a dream, I laid in bed with the blankets over my head... mad that tomorrow had come when yesterday had literally been hell on Earth. And I remember hurting for a long time after that... many days and months going by when I felt depressed, and I longed for the days of "September 10th," when the people of my generation still felt innocent.
So today, I blog in hopes that we never forget September 11, 2001, and all the lives lost. And, how it has forever changed all of our lives.
1 comment:
It's really hard to believe it was 8 years ago. Doesn't seem that long ago.
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