My thoughts on 9/11
I was about to log off my computer when I realized that I didn't commemorate the tragedy of 9/11. Maybe I chose to do this on purpose; to push it out of my mind. I guess I don't want to remember because, even though I didn't lose a loved one, I witnessed it first hand.
I remember the day like it was yesterday. My kids were at Disney World for a late summer vacation with their grandmother. They left Thursday, September 6th and returned on Monday, September 10th. I was so happy because I had the house to myself. I thought all weekend about the weather because the meteorologists kept stressing how beautiful it was going to be on Tuesday. I thought it was strange how they kept stressing the fact of how the skies were going to be so clear and the temperature perfect for a late summer day but never in my wildest thoughts would have believed the catastrophic events that were about to take place. The day my kids returned was a terrible one. It was rainy and cool. Maybe the angels were crying - for they knew what would happen? I don't know but I remember worrying about whether my family would be able to fly in because of the weather. I told this to a good friend of mine and she told me that since they are flying on Jet Blue, I can track their plane. I did so and was able to track the plane from takeoff to landing. It was delayed in FL but arrived on time at JFK. I worked at a law firm located in the Chase building 1 1/2 blocks away from the towers. I remember that there was a Yankees' game and a Jackson 5 reunion concert at Madison Square Garden that night. I worked on the 49th floor and remember one of the attorneys I worked for came out to the secretarial area and wondered whether the game will be called due to rain. I told him to call Yankee Stadium. The customer service reps should be able to tell him. He came back later and told me that the game is still on. "Great", I told him. I felt everything was okay - my kids made it home, my attorney gets to go to his game....everything's right in the world.....except I wanted to go the concert. But no biggie - it's will come on television. My kids came home at about 10:30 p.m. I rushed them to bed so that we could get up on time for school and work. Little did I know that when we went to sleep, it was our last night of normalcy as we knew it......
September 11, 2001 started off just like the meteorologists said - beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky. Just blue as far as the eye could see. The kids were off to school and I had some time on my hands so I decided that I would go into work earlier than usual to stop by Dunkin' Donuts on Broadway & John St. before going in to work. I usually leave at about 8:45 to make it in to work by 9:30 but this day I left at about 8:30. I bought a newspaper to read on the train and settled down on the #3 for the ride to Wall St. By the time I reached 34th and Penn Station I noticed how my express train was passing the local #s 1 and 9. (If you're a NYer, we know that during rush hour, the local is usually faster than the express - go figure!) I thought that it was odd but didn't think anything of it - until my train passed locals at Houston, Canal and Franklin Sts and then I started thinking that maybe there was a sick passenger. When my train got to Chambers St. and the doors opened, I hear over the PA system "Do not go to the World Trade Center, a plane has hit the World Trade, trains are suspended going to the World Trade Center". (The #1 and #9 train stop, Courtland St is underneath the concourse, the heart of the WTC.) When I heard this, others in my car looked up with bewilderment and said "What????", "Did I hear right????". We were all in shock. When the train reaches my destination (the Wall St. stop in right in the Chase building), it is pure pandemonium. People are on their cell phones, on land phones, on pay phones calling anybody and everybody they know, telling them that two planes hit the buildings. I must have been in denial because I refuse to stop and listen. I just kept going to my place of business. When I reach the lobby, people are crying, talking, yelling - just madness everywhere. I go up to my offices and the halls are bare. I'm wondering 'where is everybody?'. I run into one of my former attorneys and he asked me did I hear what happened? I said not really so he goes on to fill me in that two planes has hit the WTC. He tells me to go watch it on television. I do as am I told and my mouth drops open to see the buildings with nothing but balls of fire coming out of them. But that wasn't good enough for me - I go to the window for a first-hand look and couldn't believe my eyes. It's surreal. I'm wondering if I am in a dream and if so, when will I wake up? I go back into the conference room and watch the news reports and there is a gentleman that is in there and he is with the construction company that is doing renovations on our offices. I look at the pictures with disbelief and off the top of my head I just say "those building are going to fall". With arrogance, he states "No, they won't. They are too strong." I told him I tend to disagree; there are gaping holes in them. Then I realize that my boyfriend is over in the Merchantile Exchange making his usual rounds and I start panicking because I know that he has to go into the WTC to pick up documents. I worry about him because I didn't have a cell at the time and he didn't either. He had a pager but I couldn't page him because our outgoing service was screwy and we were receiving some incoming calls. I tried to call my mother to let her know I'm okay but couldn't get through. I go back into the conference room and by then, the company's director of operations is in there. We all are looking at the television screen when an explosion goes off in building 2 (a.k.a. the south tower). It is being reported that possibly, bombs were placed in the buildings and that could be why there are explosions. By this time, one of my co-workers joins us and she's just balling. By the time we see (and hear) another explosion, the director's instructs us to go to the cafeteria to calm down. My co-worker decides that she wants to go downstairs to smoke and (like a fool) I decide to go with her. We get down there and we end up meeting a brood of secretaries just hanging out, waiting to see when we could go home. We all try to shoot the breeze but we ominously keep looking over in the direction of the buildings. Then the inevitable happens.....
We hear a loud rumbling like a earthquake. We start running but I didn't make it into the building. I was standing right by the entranceway but in my haste and fear, I ran right past it to the second entrance. In doing so, I slipped and fell because I was wearing floppy sandals. When I turned to get my sandal, I froze because all I see coming at me is a big, gray cloud of smoke with debris in it. For that second, all I could think about it that it looked like that scene in the movie "Independence Day". Next thing I know a co-worker grabs me by the arm and demands "get up, get up!!!!!". I get up and run around the corner and we hold each other and close our eyes, trying to shield one another and next thing I know, I feel something just blanket me - but not in a good way. We open our eyes and all we see is darkness. We start banging on the windows, screaming "help us, please!". But how can they? Of course, people aren't going to come out just to help. So me, my co-worker and others that are trapped outside start feeling our way back into the building. I'm thinking that I have to get home to my children. I can't leave them as orphans. It was getting so hard to breathe because I was holding my breath. I didn't want to inhale that dust. I'm praying to Jesus to let me live to take care of my kids. How arrogant of me. I could just walk right into the building (as I did) but what about those people trapped in those two skyscrapers?? Aren't they thinking the same thing? But hindsight is 20/20 as the saying goes. I make it into the building but I don't realize that I'm covered from head to toe in dust. I looked like the people in the movie "Volcano" whereas when the boy says that everybody looks the same. There were no color lines, no race, no creed, no nationality. We all were and looked the same at that point in time. I met up with the other co-workers that I was standing outside with and they were desperate to clean me up. They kept saying "we gotta get this stuff off of you". We were down in the Chase cafeteria for hours until building security got word from the police that we were allowed to exit the building. While we were down there, we also got word that the second tower fell. It was after 12 noon and I remember when we got outside, just seeing mounds and mounds of papers. The one piece of paper that stood out to me was one from Marsh & McLennan. I knew that company to be in the WTC. When we crossed the street on Liberty, I had to look back and what I saw was unbelievable. All I saw was black, red, and orange - black for the soot, and red and orange for the fires. I'll never forget that sight as long as I live. It almost reminded me of the pits of hell. All I could think about was all those people who didn't make it out. After passing that street, I started my trek home like so many other thousands of people. By that time, no trains were running so me and three other co-workers made the trip home together. In Chinatown, a restaurant let me clean up some more and on the streets, people kept telling me "G-d bless me". I said thank you but I wasn't in the either of the buildings. I walked, rather limped, from Liberty Street all the way to 23rd Street where I was able to get a bus home. I got home after 6 p.m. to a whole slew of messages. The first from my mother calling me at about 8:50 telling me not to go to work because of the plane hitting the WTC but she missed me, a call from my kids' school stating that they were dismissing classes and that someone will be picking up my girls (the principal knew I worked in the area and wished me well), after that messages from family and friends hoping that I made it home but the one call I cherished was from my boyfriend saying that he made it home alright and will call me later to see if I made it home. I returned all calls and took a nice, hot bath to get all the soot off of me which by that time was itching like crazy. Little did I know what was mixed up in all that debris......
Looking back on that day, I would say that I came out of it lucky but so many others didn't. The irony is that I was trying to get my son into a daycare center located in building 5 but the center required a test that normally wouldn't be given to a child of his age so his start date was delayed. Maybe it was divine intervention. I certainly hope so.
Things were never the same downtown. There was a time when it was so congested you couldn't walk down Broadway comfortably, now you could walk with your arms outstreached with room to spare. It became a ghost town. I ghost town that I wouldn't want to visit. I took me a long time to go to Century 21 after it re-opened because I didn't want to look in that direction. I missed the concourse where I used to go shopping and have lunch. I was in the Children's Place the Friday before the attacks, looking at a jacket for my son and thought "I get paid next week so I'll come back and buy the jacket". Hard to believe that four days later, the store, the concourse, the train station underneath, the whole complex would be gone. I had co-workers that lost husbands in Windows on the World. Normally, it would not have been open at that time but their was a breakfast function going on and they serving at the time of the attacks. I feel for them because their lives will never be the same. Neither will ours.
This is the first time that I actually put down in words what happened. I've been hesitant beforehand because I thought that my story wouldn't have any significance to anyone but myself because I didn't work in the WTC. Now I realize that maybe this is what I needed to do to be able to move on and accept what happened. I know that it may be easy for me to do but much harder on the people left behind by the victims.
I remember the day like it was yesterday. My kids were at Disney World for a late summer vacation with their grandmother. They left Thursday, September 6th and returned on Monday, September 10th. I was so happy because I had the house to myself. I thought all weekend about the weather because the meteorologists kept stressing how beautiful it was going to be on Tuesday. I thought it was strange how they kept stressing the fact of how the skies were going to be so clear and the temperature perfect for a late summer day but never in my wildest thoughts would have believed the catastrophic events that were about to take place. The day my kids returned was a terrible one. It was rainy and cool. Maybe the angels were crying - for they knew what would happen? I don't know but I remember worrying about whether my family would be able to fly in because of the weather. I told this to a good friend of mine and she told me that since they are flying on Jet Blue, I can track their plane. I did so and was able to track the plane from takeoff to landing. It was delayed in FL but arrived on time at JFK. I worked at a law firm located in the Chase building 1 1/2 blocks away from the towers. I remember that there was a Yankees' game and a Jackson 5 reunion concert at Madison Square Garden that night. I worked on the 49th floor and remember one of the attorneys I worked for came out to the secretarial area and wondered whether the game will be called due to rain. I told him to call Yankee Stadium. The customer service reps should be able to tell him. He came back later and told me that the game is still on. "Great", I told him. I felt everything was okay - my kids made it home, my attorney gets to go to his game....everything's right in the world.....except I wanted to go the concert. But no biggie - it's will come on television. My kids came home at about 10:30 p.m. I rushed them to bed so that we could get up on time for school and work. Little did I know that when we went to sleep, it was our last night of normalcy as we knew it......
September 11, 2001 started off just like the meteorologists said - beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky. Just blue as far as the eye could see. The kids were off to school and I had some time on my hands so I decided that I would go into work earlier than usual to stop by Dunkin' Donuts on Broadway & John St. before going in to work. I usually leave at about 8:45 to make it in to work by 9:30 but this day I left at about 8:30. I bought a newspaper to read on the train and settled down on the #3 for the ride to Wall St. By the time I reached 34th and Penn Station I noticed how my express train was passing the local #s 1 and 9. (If you're a NYer, we know that during rush hour, the local is usually faster than the express - go figure!) I thought that it was odd but didn't think anything of it - until my train passed locals at Houston, Canal and Franklin Sts and then I started thinking that maybe there was a sick passenger. When my train got to Chambers St. and the doors opened, I hear over the PA system "Do not go to the World Trade Center, a plane has hit the World Trade, trains are suspended going to the World Trade Center". (The #1 and #9 train stop, Courtland St is underneath the concourse, the heart of the WTC.) When I heard this, others in my car looked up with bewilderment and said "What????", "Did I hear right????". We were all in shock. When the train reaches my destination (the Wall St. stop in right in the Chase building), it is pure pandemonium. People are on their cell phones, on land phones, on pay phones calling anybody and everybody they know, telling them that two planes hit the buildings. I must have been in denial because I refuse to stop and listen. I just kept going to my place of business. When I reach the lobby, people are crying, talking, yelling - just madness everywhere. I go up to my offices and the halls are bare. I'm wondering 'where is everybody?'. I run into one of my former attorneys and he asked me did I hear what happened? I said not really so he goes on to fill me in that two planes has hit the WTC. He tells me to go watch it on television. I do as am I told and my mouth drops open to see the buildings with nothing but balls of fire coming out of them. But that wasn't good enough for me - I go to the window for a first-hand look and couldn't believe my eyes. It's surreal. I'm wondering if I am in a dream and if so, when will I wake up? I go back into the conference room and watch the news reports and there is a gentleman that is in there and he is with the construction company that is doing renovations on our offices. I look at the pictures with disbelief and off the top of my head I just say "those building are going to fall". With arrogance, he states "No, they won't. They are too strong." I told him I tend to disagree; there are gaping holes in them. Then I realize that my boyfriend is over in the Merchantile Exchange making his usual rounds and I start panicking because I know that he has to go into the WTC to pick up documents. I worry about him because I didn't have a cell at the time and he didn't either. He had a pager but I couldn't page him because our outgoing service was screwy and we were receiving some incoming calls. I tried to call my mother to let her know I'm okay but couldn't get through. I go back into the conference room and by then, the company's director of operations is in there. We all are looking at the television screen when an explosion goes off in building 2 (a.k.a. the south tower). It is being reported that possibly, bombs were placed in the buildings and that could be why there are explosions. By this time, one of my co-workers joins us and she's just balling. By the time we see (and hear) another explosion, the director's instructs us to go to the cafeteria to calm down. My co-worker decides that she wants to go downstairs to smoke and (like a fool) I decide to go with her. We get down there and we end up meeting a brood of secretaries just hanging out, waiting to see when we could go home. We all try to shoot the breeze but we ominously keep looking over in the direction of the buildings. Then the inevitable happens.....
We hear a loud rumbling like a earthquake. We start running but I didn't make it into the building. I was standing right by the entranceway but in my haste and fear, I ran right past it to the second entrance. In doing so, I slipped and fell because I was wearing floppy sandals. When I turned to get my sandal, I froze because all I see coming at me is a big, gray cloud of smoke with debris in it. For that second, all I could think about it that it looked like that scene in the movie "Independence Day". Next thing I know a co-worker grabs me by the arm and demands "get up, get up!!!!!". I get up and run around the corner and we hold each other and close our eyes, trying to shield one another and next thing I know, I feel something just blanket me - but not in a good way. We open our eyes and all we see is darkness. We start banging on the windows, screaming "help us, please!". But how can they? Of course, people aren't going to come out just to help. So me, my co-worker and others that are trapped outside start feeling our way back into the building. I'm thinking that I have to get home to my children. I can't leave them as orphans. It was getting so hard to breathe because I was holding my breath. I didn't want to inhale that dust. I'm praying to Jesus to let me live to take care of my kids. How arrogant of me. I could just walk right into the building (as I did) but what about those people trapped in those two skyscrapers?? Aren't they thinking the same thing? But hindsight is 20/20 as the saying goes. I make it into the building but I don't realize that I'm covered from head to toe in dust. I looked like the people in the movie "Volcano" whereas when the boy says that everybody looks the same. There were no color lines, no race, no creed, no nationality. We all were and looked the same at that point in time. I met up with the other co-workers that I was standing outside with and they were desperate to clean me up. They kept saying "we gotta get this stuff off of you". We were down in the Chase cafeteria for hours until building security got word from the police that we were allowed to exit the building. While we were down there, we also got word that the second tower fell. It was after 12 noon and I remember when we got outside, just seeing mounds and mounds of papers. The one piece of paper that stood out to me was one from Marsh & McLennan. I knew that company to be in the WTC. When we crossed the street on Liberty, I had to look back and what I saw was unbelievable. All I saw was black, red, and orange - black for the soot, and red and orange for the fires. I'll never forget that sight as long as I live. It almost reminded me of the pits of hell. All I could think about was all those people who didn't make it out. After passing that street, I started my trek home like so many other thousands of people. By that time, no trains were running so me and three other co-workers made the trip home together. In Chinatown, a restaurant let me clean up some more and on the streets, people kept telling me "G-d bless me". I said thank you but I wasn't in the either of the buildings. I walked, rather limped, from Liberty Street all the way to 23rd Street where I was able to get a bus home. I got home after 6 p.m. to a whole slew of messages. The first from my mother calling me at about 8:50 telling me not to go to work because of the plane hitting the WTC but she missed me, a call from my kids' school stating that they were dismissing classes and that someone will be picking up my girls (the principal knew I worked in the area and wished me well), after that messages from family and friends hoping that I made it home but the one call I cherished was from my boyfriend saying that he made it home alright and will call me later to see if I made it home. I returned all calls and took a nice, hot bath to get all the soot off of me which by that time was itching like crazy. Little did I know what was mixed up in all that debris......
Looking back on that day, I would say that I came out of it lucky but so many others didn't. The irony is that I was trying to get my son into a daycare center located in building 5 but the center required a test that normally wouldn't be given to a child of his age so his start date was delayed. Maybe it was divine intervention. I certainly hope so.
Things were never the same downtown. There was a time when it was so congested you couldn't walk down Broadway comfortably, now you could walk with your arms outstreached with room to spare. It became a ghost town. I ghost town that I wouldn't want to visit. I took me a long time to go to Century 21 after it re-opened because I didn't want to look in that direction. I missed the concourse where I used to go shopping and have lunch. I was in the Children's Place the Friday before the attacks, looking at a jacket for my son and thought "I get paid next week so I'll come back and buy the jacket". Hard to believe that four days later, the store, the concourse, the train station underneath, the whole complex would be gone. I had co-workers that lost husbands in Windows on the World. Normally, it would not have been open at that time but their was a breakfast function going on and they serving at the time of the attacks. I feel for them because their lives will never be the same. Neither will ours.
This is the first time that I actually put down in words what happened. I've been hesitant beforehand because I thought that my story wouldn't have any significance to anyone but myself because I didn't work in the WTC. Now I realize that maybe this is what I needed to do to be able to move on and accept what happened. I know that it may be easy for me to do but much harder on the people left behind by the victims.
posted by Trilivonel @ 10:29 PM
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