Regarding 9/11/2001. Written on 9/11/2011. Posted on 9/11/2016
[A friend sent an email to her friends, asking for their 9/11 memories. I decided to go ahead and share something I wrote for myself in 2011.]
I was in my cubicle at work at Aspen. Suddenly, I hear Stephanie arriving and she’s saying she just heard on her car radio that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Like many others, I imagined a small private plane, but she said no it was a commercial airliner. Next I remember several of us standing around wondering what happened. Then someone said another plane had hit the other tower and then I knew it was not an accident and this was what we all came to know as the attack on the WTC.
In those first minutes, my first thoughts were of my sister, Susan, who lived in Jersey City but whose office was just blocks away from the WTC. Then I remembered, oh wait, she’s not there. She died in February.
But what about her husband Francois and her colleagues who worked there as well? Then there was Mike’s brother Thom, and Nancy and Jillian who lived in NYC. For some reason though, I wasn’t too worried about them, because in my mind’s eye I pictured them far enough north to not be in immediate danger. Of course, I learned later that they spent the morning scrambling to get Jillian from her school.
I remember standing at my computer trying to get on line to a news site. I went to the conference room and turned on the tv and tried to tune it to a news channel. I actually moved the tv cart around trying to find a spot where we could get some reception. I remembered my emergency radio and took it up to the front desk so that Brenda could listen for news.
People were starting to hear from family members who were trying to leave their workplaces in DC because by now a plane had crashed into the Pentagon and there were reports of a fourth plane coming towards DC. Of course, we later learned that plane would crash in Pennsylvania.
At some point I heard from Mike who was at work, and from Jennifer who was at home. She had just arrived the day before after driving down from Boston—on her way to California after graduating from college. She was upset and trying to convince Mike that he should leave work since he worked in a government building. He finally got word that they could leave. I wasn’t sure where Shanksville was, but thought it was far enough away from Amelia at Penn State that I felt she was safe. I don’t remember when I talked to her. I just remember knowing she was OK.
I’m not sure now, why I didn’t get hysterical and rush to pick up Elena at school. Someone asked me and it didn’t make sense to me—I figured she was safe, right where she was. I finally went home so I could be there when the kids got off the bus. I remember when Kim and Elena came up the street, I was worried about Kim going home to an empty house because I wasn’t sure Sandy and Sam had been able to leave work. She said she’d come back up if no one was home.
I went next door to the Ritterpusch’s to check on them because John and Lynn were in Hawaii at a convention. Of course, their grandparents were already there. It would take days for John and Lynn to get on a plane and make their way home.
We spent the rest of day watching tv and listening to the news on NPR and trying to NOT upset each other, and especially Elena. By evening we had been able to check in with family and knew that Amelia was fine at Penn State, Francois was fine, that Thom, Nancy and Jillian were fine, and that the rest of the family was OK.
Looking back, it seems like those next days all merged together. I don’t remember much except watching the tv and checking in with people. My niece, Jama was supposed to have arrived here from Los Angeles on the 11th and was stuck in LA. Her boyfriend had arrived on the 10th and was staying in a tiny basement room in northern VA. We went and picked him up on the 14th, thinking he shouldn’t be alone and was safer here in Gaithersburg. Jennifer’s friend from Boston finally made it here, and the two of them continued their post-college-adventure-road-trip out to California. They left here on the 18th. Jama arrived from California and she and Brian stayed here until they found an apartment. They were both starting jobs on The Hill and have spent the last 10 years living in DC and NYC. Jennifer made it to LA on the 26th. Elena had her meniscus repair surgery on the 28th.
Our lives went on. All of us went on, but we were the lucky ones. Our hearts were broken and we were scared. But we didn’t have gigantic holes in our lives where loved ones once stood.
I won’t go into my feelings about everything that’s happened since 9/11/01. And I won’t presume to tell you how you should feel. I’ll just say that I refuse to give in to hate---even after so many people have tried to get me to hate others, and after all the opportunities I had to hate. I will always choose Hope and Love.
9/11/2016
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