8:46 AM September 11, 2001.
Be it that I am from New York, 8:46 AM is the time that above all other ticks on the clock- our world stood still. Sitting in my car, in a parking lot, enjoying my Dunkin Donuts coffee, feeling lucky that I got a close parking space to my first college class of the day and listening to my favorite radio morning show on the most beautiful, sunny day-the world changed in a split second. The radio DJ in the midst of some bit, starts yelling that something happened to one of the towers. It looked (at the time) like an explosion. Knowing that their studios on-looked the World Trade Center (but also knowing how they LOVE a good prank) I thought they were joking....I flipped around stations and heard nothing and flipped back and angrily thought “not funny.”
I got out of my car, went to class and not one person said a single thing about what I thought was a dumb joke being played by goofy disc jockeys. It was not until someone mentioned something to our clueless professor that she tried to get a TV into our room and then dismissed us moments later. We rushed in droves to any place on campus that had a television tuned into the news. We all looked on in horror as the smoke billowed out of those buildings as if watching a movie with frighteningly realistic special effects. I remember trying to call my parents-my mom working for the airlines back then, my dad being a local firefighter...worrying that I couldn’t get through to either of them like so many of us that had lost cell phone services that day. Not knowing what to do or where to go or where my parents were, I spent the rest of the day at a then-boyfriend’s house glued to the TV with waves of shock, nausea and overwhelming emotion coming over me. I remember sitting on the road in my car in the longest lines of traffic not knowing what was going to happen next, visions of the smoke clouds and crumbling towers haunting my ride.
Now, almost ten years later, I woke up to breaking news...Osama bin Laden DEAD. Watching the crowds celebrating in both New York and DC while sitting in my living room in Spain- I broke down into tears. Tears of joy, tears of pain, tears for the families of people who were lost in the towers, tears of anger that it took this long, tears that it finally happened, tears of the memories that are forever imprinted, tears.
On this past Friday night I was participating in The American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life and when it came time to honor those we have lost, Amazing Grace was being played by bagpipes and the names were solemnly being read off. It threw me right back to year after year of watching the 9-11 memorials. Odd that the same night I was having these flashbacks, surrounded by our military members and their families, our President was signing off on this operation. Though I am sad that I am far away from home, I am grateful that I live amongst the brave men and women who risk their lives for us to be able to celebrate days like today.
Thank you to our military. Thank you to our intelligence agencies. Thank you to our government. Perhaps, most importantly thank you to those faithful few who made this day one to remember for a positive reason. I know that what happened today will not solve our problems, however; for those of us who lived through it and were touched by it it gives a small sense of closure to a horrible time in our country's history.
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