Somber, that is the only word I can find to describe how I feel today. It is Friday, September 11, 2009. Eight years later and it still feels like a fresh scab that has been ripped off to expose the wound beneath. For some reason more so this year then the ones in the past, I am not sure why that is. I was not going to write a post about 9/11, I know that there will be millions of these, but I just can’t seem to get a way from my thoughts about it, maybe this will help get them out of my head. So here is mine:
It was just after 6:00am and I was in the process of getting ready for work, for some reason we didn’t have the news on like we always did. I am sure that Dear Hubby had a reason that had to do with TV and finding out who won something. For some reason I logged on to the computer, again not something I would normally do before work. At the time we were using ICQ as a chat client, it logged me in automatically. I got the pop up window from some we chatted with from Australia all it said was “is it true?” I had no idea what he was talking about so I responded with “is what true?” He responded “is it true that a plan hit the World Trade Center?” I remember feeling kind numb at see the words on the screen and then I shouted in to the living room to turn on the TV. I told Dear Hubby what I had been told by “Bledarren”. So we flipped on the TV and started to watch. And watch, we were glued to the TV listening to the play by play of what they thought was a small commuter jet that had crashed into the building. It was slowly becoming apparent that it was something more then just a small commuter plane. We were watching a live shot as the second plane hit the other tower. I remember just standing there in my living room watching this unfold before me and really the whole world. I did get back on the computer to confirm that yes it was true and that there was a second plane that hit the other tower for “Bledarren” and then hurried back to the living room.
Boy Head was up eating his breakfast before school he was only 5 at the time (man that seems like so long ago he was 5). How do you explain to a 5 year old that what he is seeing on the news is the most horrific thing you hope he will ever see in his life? How do you make him feel safe and that nothing bad is going to happen to him or anyone that he loves when you don’t feel that way yourself? I really didn’t have time or anyway to find those answers, I had to go to work. But that was the last thing I wanted to do was be away from my family at this point, I was scared to go to work and leave them. What if this was the end? I had no answers for any of those questions. I know that day his world, and everyone’s world changed. They say kids are resilient; I have to agree with that. He flies a lot with his grandmother; I was concerned that he would be too scared to get on a plane. And the for a few years after that day he was a little scared to fly, but he has gotten to the point where he is fine with flying again. I on the other hand not so much, I don’t have the need to fly anywhere if I can’t get there by driving I don’t need to go.
But the job I had at the time really didn’t care about anything but your butt in your chair at work. No one was going to work that day, they were all to freaked out about what looked like footage for a new disaster movie, but was real. It was all real, and happening in front of our eyes. Every station was carrying the carnage and playing it on a never ending loop. So, I drove to work that morning, I was too afraid to take BART. What if we were next? I remember listening to the radio they were broadcasting live news. I parked the van in the lot across the street from the building I work in; I sat and listened to the reporter talk about the thudding that they could hear, it was the bodies of people who were jumping out of the windows on the upper floors. In the background you could hear it, the thud of bodies hitting the overhangs of the building, to this day I can remember that sound and it gives me chills. Someone posted on Facebook yesterday, one of the pictures that were captured of a man falling from the towers, when I saw the picture all I could think of is that sound of the bodies hitting the awning, just like I was right back to that day. It is scary what the mind holds on to.
I did make it in to my building, it is a high rise in the downtown area, we had heard reports that there were possible west coast targets, at that point there was no way that I wanted to be in a tall building anywhere let alone on the west coast. While I don’t work for some fancy company that possible could be a target (at lest I don’t think we would be) you just never knew. I rode up in the elevator to the 12th fl where I worked; it was the longest elevator ride of my life. When I got to the floor no one was working they were standing around listing to radios and talking to co-workers about the horrible events that were unfolding minute by minute.
About 10:00 they sent us all home; I was shocked by this but was happy to be out of the tall building and headed home to be with Dear Hubby, Boy Head went to school we thought it would be best to keep his life some what normal. I got in the van and drove home listening to the reports on the radio. I was crying on the driving home this was the saddest thing I had ever been part of. You hear people always talk about how they will always remember where they were when Kennedy was shot, and those of us who where not there just don’t get it. This is that moment for us. No one who was over the age for maybe 3 will ever forget what took place that morning. I was mad that someone was able to attack us. We are the United State of America and you just don’t walk in here and start blowing shit up. That is just not how it is supposed to work, damnit! War take place else where, places with name we can’t pronounce. Lives are lost in far off places, not in downtown New York. Not in the USA. I was outraged and scared all at the same time, but mostly I was sad. It was a sadness that I have never felt before; on I hope to never feel again.
I was not really sure how I should be feeling (still not really sure about this). As far as I knew my family was all accounted for, no one I knew was at ground zero. I was grateful for that. Part of me wanted to just forget the whole thing, it had happened on the other side of the country and I was not personally affected by it, so life should just go back to normal. But that was not true, everyone was affected. It changed the way we looked at the world, it changed everything. The new normal was anything but normal. The world changed that day.
Dear Hubby asked me this morning if I thought that people who were around for Pearl Harbor felt the same way as we do about 9/11. I thought about it. The answer I came up with was yes, but only those who were there and saw the devastation fist hand. 9/11 affected the world. Back then they didn’t have live streaming news 24/7 on your phone, computer, TV or radio. I think it is wider felt by more people due to the fact that we were bombarded with this horrible footage of the planes crashing in the buildings, the bodies falling out of windows, and the towers coming down, for hour, days, weeks and maybe even moths after the actual event. The country was affected by Perl Harbor but most of the people didn’t see the carnage unfold in front of their eyes, and neither did the world. They didn’t have the images burned in to their brains for unfiltered access to the footage being shown for days on end in some sort of constant loop. I think the people who witnessed Pearl Harbor did; they saw it the same way the world saw what was happening in New York. The world was watching, obviously by the fact that I found out from a friend in Australia. I really don’t know where I am trying to get with this post. If you made it this far all I can say is Thank You for reading my meanderings. This was helpful maybe now I can think about something else today. Or not we will have to see.
