9/11

On September 11, 2001,  I was 30 years old,  working in corporate America,  a little over two years into a job I would keep for over 8 years until downsizing and restructuring moved those jobs out of this city.  My daughter was just a few weeks past her 1^st birthday.  My twin sons were 7 years old, soon to be 8.  In 2001, Apple introduced the iPod, something we all think we cannot live without anymore.  Mountain Dew Code Red had just hit the shelves.  Gameboy Advance was a huge deal.  Low Rise jeans, Britney Spears, Halo, Bratz, “I Love the 80’s”,  reality TV such as Survivor and The Amazing Race,  Shrek, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, George W. ,  Microsoft X-Box, SpongeBob Squarepants, “Will and Grace” and Timothy McVeigh’s execution were just a few things we were talking about.  Dale Earnhardt, Joey Ramone, Perry Como, and Aaliya had passed away. 

On September 11, 2001 I went to work at 7:30 am just like any other day of my life, sat down in my cubicle and went about my business.  Before 8am news reports on my radio at my desk indicated that a small private plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.  A few minutes later we heard that another plane hit and reporters announced that they now knew this was not an accident and felt that America was under attack.  Then we heard about the plane crashing into the Pentagon.  And after that, the crash of United 93 in a field in Pennsylvania (after the brave passengers on that flight, to call them heroes would be an understatement,  knowing that their own death was inevitable, still stormed the cockpit to take over the hijackers to save the lives of countless others who that plane would have killed had it crashed into a building.) 

In the corporate world, we don’t often turn TVs on unless it is to watch a corporate training video,  or perhaps a videotaped speech of our CEO who was residing in another state.  Maybe, just maybe, if the company I was working for had a stunning new marketing campaign, we would get to watch a vegetable commercial.  But for the most part those TVs were simply attached to a video machine and stored in a closet.  Unlike some other businesses, we did not even have a television in the break room to watch soaps or talk shows during our lunch break.  For some reason that day, someone, and to this day I do not know who,  turned those TVs on so that if anyone wanted we could view the news of this tragedy, this act of terrorism.  The last time I had seen a TV turned on to a live news broadcast in a corporate setting was way back in 1995 when the O.J. Simpson Criminal trial verdict was read live on TV.  Despite what you might think,  I did not immediately get up from my cubicle to watch the news broadcasts.  I sat and stared at my name engraved into a nameplate, listening on the radio and imagined on this day how those people who worked in the World Trade Center woke up that morning, put on their business clothes, kissed their partner goodbye, sent the kids off to school and stopped to buy a way too expensive cup of coffee or breakfast sandwich.  Those men and women went up the elevator thinking “Damn, it’s only TUESDAY!”  Just like I did that morning.  Many of those people, just like me didn’t even have a cell phone at the time  and didn’t anticipate any reason to speak to their husband/wife/partner/children until they returned home that evening.  All I kept thinking is they are dying in that burning tower, some of them jumping out the windows, and their day started that started just like mine is forever changed.  Those they left at home or at the bus stop or at the train station that morning will forever be changed.  So when I got up from my office chair finally to use the restroom, I was walking by the boardroom and stopped to take a glimpse of the TV at the exact moment the first tower collapsed.  I was frozen in the doorway of that room.  I don’t know if I ever made it to the restroom. 

All I wanted to do was go home and hug my kids and my husband, call my mom and my sister and every single person I loved.  That evening, coming home to young children, they said their teachers talked to them at school, but it was still hard to explain.  As one of my boys said he was worried because “you work in a tall building”  - ok, it was only three floors, but at 7 years old that seems tall.  My daughter, my baby, had no idea what was going on, why we were all sitting in front of the TV while she continued to giggle and play and be her pleasant chunk of fun one year old self.  That night I prayed and though I hate to admit it, selfishly at first I thanked God that my people in my life were ok, safe in their beds.  But then I prayed that he would stay with those who needed him most – that were personally affected by this tragedy.  The children whose mother or father did not come home from work.  The pregnant mothers who knew the baby they were carrying would never see his or her father.  The husbands and wives and parents and brothers and sisters and parents of firefighters and policeman who had no idea if their loved one would return home that night.  The people who had THEIR people on those planes, and perhaps got one last phone call and then… nothing.

I think that day, that one day, our nation pulled together and became a unified nation.  We put our differences aside and we reached out to strangers in a way we probably never had before.  We became kinder and more open.  Though it was a horrific day, in some ways it brought our nation together.  On this day, eleven years later, we should try to remember that and not only try to be that kind of person again on this day,  but maybe every day of our lives.