We will never forget . . .

I was listening to some radio play-backs on the way to work this morning. It's hard to believe it's been 13 years, but my memory of it surely is still fresh. Prayers for those who lost dear ones in this tragedy.

September 11 and November 22 are dates I will never forget.

Can't believe it either, 13 years !! it's DD's birthday today so I'm in a festive mood but it doesn't prevent me from remembering and thinking about it, It makes me treasure this day even more since I'm celebrating in person with my daughter, I'm lucky to have her. She's 35 today.

Her first year at NYU was one year after 9/11, she was alone in NYC but didn't feel alone since everyone was in a very mellow mood and talking to strangers that day, as a way of commemorating the one year anniversary. I think people were still in shock even after one year.

DH and I were talking about where we were when we heard the news...I was supposed to go to the WTC for a breakfast meeting that day but blew it off...thank goodness! So horrible, so sad. Still can't look at pictures from that day...too upsetting...

My heart goes out to all affected by that tragic day...

I remember the little things about that day and the next few days after.

We live on a busy street. That day and after everyone was driving very slowly. Standing in my yard I could see the drivers faces (which I never do now as they whiz past). We live in a flight path from our airport. There were no planes for how many days??? It was weird. I remember going to the grocery store the next day and everyone was so nice and quiet. Not that we have nasty people in our store but it seemed that everyone was going out of their way to be polite and helpful.

I just posted on my FB page about this. We're in the Boston area and knew two families who lost loved ones. One was on the plane to California (I knew him). The other was in the tower (a freind's brother). I went to the memorial service for one.

210 of the people killed were from Mass. Every time we go through Logan Airport I think of it. Those people, just going about their business, boarding a plane for business (mostly) or pleasure. How awful.

We had just sent our oldest overseas to study abroad for a year. She arrived on 9/10 and the next day was directed to an auditorium to hear the news. Then the planes were halted...totally. It was the most unnerving experience.

We will never forget and I am sending prayers to all who lost a loved one.

Two people who lived in my town were killed on Sept 11. I remember walking in the peaceful historical district where one of them lived and thinking how could so much evil have touched us?

A few days after Sept 11, I was driving home and I saw big white crosses in the sky. I was listening to the radio and someone called in and remarked about the crosses in the sky. This was during the time when no planes were allowed to fly so they couldn't have been made by planes flying. I took a picture of them and I still have it.

I remember where I was quite clearly, as does nearly everyone. I had just started a new job at a hospital, and went to one of the other hospitals in the same system to meet with a staff member. Someone rushed in to tell us what was happening and we all gathered around a radio. The internet was totally clogged with people trying to get on the CNN, MSNBC and other news sites. It was nearly impossible to wrap your mind around the event.

I left that hospital and headed home, which was near by. My son was there and we watched in disbelief as the towers fell. Then, because I had just started this job a few days before, I felt obligated to go back to the office (FYI-- I had a non-clinical job, so no patients were waiting for me).

Everyone was being so kind and thoughtful of each other. Cars had headlights on, drove at respectful speeds, stopped at lights and signs. No one cut anyone off or got angry. I wish we could be like that every day, not just in the face of great loss.

I remember the silence of no airplanes in the skies and the non-stop coverage on television with no commercials. Light hearted stations like QVC and HGTV did not broadcast. Everything was surreal. A high school friend died that day and also the son of a college friend. What a tragedy.

Chispa,

I was 6 months pregnant, working in Midtown Manhattan. My DH worked across the street from WTC, at One Liberty Plaza. That morning, he dropped me off at my office and then drove out of the city to a golf outing in NJ. He saw the smoke as he entered the Lincoln tunnel.

I was preparing for a meeting when a staffmember came in and said "it's the oddest thing, my Mom just called to tell me she saw a plane crash into WTC on TV". We all assumed it was a news helicopter or something dumb.

Then, however many minutes later, going onto an elevator, we heard there was another plane. We went down to the trading floor, where the news is always the most accurate and up to date, where screens and TVs flash everywhere. The normal cacophony of a few hundred people on phones, the yelling and boisterousness, were all subdued, with everyone looking at the screens.

There was this sense that anything could happen next, that anything could fall out of the sky at any minute. Our offices were across from Rockefeller center, and there was discussion about whether it was a target, too. One of my staff had been downtown at a meeting a block away. He walked all the way to 52nd street and arrived covered in dust but totally fine. One staffmember freaked and went to sit in the Central Park, since he felt that was the only place a building would not collapse on him. I recall one Canadian guy who, months later, moved back to Montreal because he was convinced that the next terror attack was going to be biological weapons on the subway. Two other staffmembers, who no one knew were having an affair, started consoling each other.

My first reaction was to tell everyone to go out and get food to last a day or two and lots of water. (i'm a foodie to the last, LOL). Then we commandeered a large internal conference room (again this fear of things falling through the sky). Everyone was trying to stream out of the city, but they kept closing bridges and tunnels. The ferry lines were 5 or 6 hours long. I didn't think it made sense to join the mayhem, So we spent the day together, playing cards and hangman and watching the news, all numb. One by one we peeled off as things calmed down. I got a ride home that night with 4 guys who worked for me (wonderful nerds who called themselves the Asian mafia in jest). One of them had been a messenger in the Bronx when he was in college, so even as they closed off the bridges he knew how to get us home, up through Westchester and then back down and over the Tappan Zee (one of the few bridges not closed).

DH and I watched the news seemingly constantly for the next few weeks. We lived near an airport and I was constantly listening for any planes that sounded closer than usual. I couldn't sleep. I read somewhere that "if, after 30 days, you are still having trouble sleeping, see a therapist". On day 30 I started being able to sleep again.

I lost many colleagues and several friends, none close. We lost a neighbor, a young Dad. We had been planning a Halloween block party, a first for the neighborhood, based at our house. Even by late October it seemed hard to think of having a party.

But we did, and I will always remember it. It was a glorious crisp sunny autumn day, there were dozens of kids, a big kettle of cocoa on the grill, pumpkin painting and treasure hunts and cupcake decorating. The children had fun. The adults all felt renewed and there was such a sense of community. The neighbor family came to the party, the first of many times they impressed us all with their dignity and grace.

Yesterday we had our monthly cooking club dinner. It was the first time Sept 11 anniversary that almost no one I knew brought it up. The only who did was DH, who took a flying lesson yesterday morning.

Sept 11 was the catalyst that put in motion a lot of the choices that led to the lifestyle we have today. If it had not happened, I don't think DH and I would have retired so young.

What a great story, mtn. One of the few 'close-hand' stories I've really been able to read.

One of DH's brothers was in town with his boss for a meeting and was about a quarter mile away from the WTC. They were evacuated from their building but couldn't get into the Embassy Suites where their clothes were either. So they went back to the office building and stayed there for a while. All he had was on his back plus his laptop and he was pretty dusty by this time. They eventually got a ferry to NJ, found a hotel, bought some clothes and stayed a couple of days there before finally making their journey home via train. It took them about 3-4 days to eventually get to Tallahassee, FL.

After receiving much correspondence and disclaimers from Hilton/Embassy Suites over the next 6 months regarding his belongings, he received a sealed plastic bag containing his clothes and suitcase from them. He had to sign all sorts of waivers. Apparently everything had been treated for any chemical and potential asbestos contamination. He said when he opened it up there was such a horrible odor and the whole thing went in the trash.

Annie, you sure had a close call too.

Mtn,
We lived in the tri-state area for many years and the WTC was my favorite place to visit, never liked The Empire State building as much. Always took friends to the top of the towers during the late afternoon and the we would sit and wait for the sun to set and the lights to come on in the city. Loved that view.

My Dad worked in Manhattan for 20 years and at one time their office was in the WTC. My parents were in NJ at the time and their neighborhood lost 3 men, all with young families. I was in MA at the time and my town lost 2 people who were on the planes. We knew lots of people that were in NYC that day, some in the WTC area, but luckily no one we knew died that day.

DH went to Columbia for his MBA and and has photos at the top of the WTC wearing his cap and gown. It is strange being in CA, so far from the northeast, were the majority of people here did/do not have a personal connection to the WTC area or the people affected.

Our town lost a family...father, mother, and the youngest victim to die in the tragedy, their 2 yr old daughter...they were on one of the planes.

The stories of close calls and what ifs were amazing at that time....one fellow I worked with, his wife worked with Port Authority in the WTC. She was on her way to work, had just come up from the subway stop and saw the first plane hit. As chance would have it, they had had company the night before, she drank too much wine and decided to sleep in and take a later train. Had she not, she most likely would've perished along with many of her co-workers.

Fortunately the breakfast meeting I was to attend was on the 1st floor...all attendees survived, though they had a terrible mess to deal with. I still wonder how I ever would've gotten home as they shut down almost everything for quite awhile...

The other thing that was so striking to me was the weather was absolutely spectacular that day...the sky was deep blue, the temperature was perfect, the humidity was low...it was an absolutely superb weather day... a day in which tragedy would be the furthest thing from your mind....

It was weeks later that we went to the city and I still remember the shock of seeing the skyline without the twin towers. Very upsetting.

I still get chills whenever I see a digital clock with the time 9:11.

I remember every detail of that day - I too was pg (early on and ended up MCing). DH was in Boston on a business trip - thankfully he drove but we had no idea what other targets there might be. DS was not quite 3 yrs old and was in daycare (I'd dropped him off before work) at DH's place of work on the mainland, I was at work at a Navy base on Aquineck Island right next to the Naval War College. I was in the radio room and saw the footage of the WTC when we heard the Pentagon had been attacked too. I had to leave - I went home, all I could think of was my kids, what would happen if the NWC was attacked, even if DH was OK and came home what would daycare do if I didn't show up to get DS? I left him there so he would have a "normal" day, I certainly wasn't able to act normally right then. But figured I'd be OK at our rural home and then went to pick him up at the usual time. I was pretty sure that location wouldn't be a target, so DS was safe where he was.

The kids learn about it in school now, DD (born in 2003) told me they made ribbons with the motto "Never Forget" but it's ancient history to them. Much as Nov 22 1963 is to me.

My heart goes out to all those who lost loved ones that day. And yes, I remember it was a beautiful perfect fall day - a day on which you thought nothing bad could ever happen.

I don't think I will ever be the same person I was on 9/10/01. I know several people who perished that awful day. I also know several who were able to get out. My next door neighbor is a 9/11 widower, I did not know her at the time. Her children have very vague first hand memories of their dad. We have become very close to the family and have heard her account of what it was like to watch the building collapse knowing her husband was trapped inside of it. And what it was like for her to tell her babies that daddy was never coming home.
My girls belong to a youth theater group with brothers who also lost their father, they also only vaguely remember their dad. It really is a sad thing to know first hand so many people directly affected that day.
I grew up in an outer borough of NYC and live in suburban NJ. I worked the night shift on 9/10/01 and looked at NYC from the parking garage of the hospital I work at and thought how beautiful the skyline looked on that clear day. I left work at 8:15 am. Little did I know that would be the very last time I'd look over at the skyline as I'd always known it. My colleague I signed all my patients out to lost her fiance that day.
Life has gone on in 13 years but in many ways it has never been the same, I'm sorry to say. I'm very fortunate none of my loved ones died. My husband, mom and cousin all work in NYC. Mom recently retired, but my husband is still in the city every day. And I know I'm not supposed to live in fear, but I'm sorry to say I do. I worry for his safety every day.