September 11th 2008

How is it even possible that seven years has past since that dreaded day? I drove to work this morning listening to the coverage on the radio from 9/11/2001 and tears came to my eyes. I do not know if it is because I grew up in NYC, but the events that took place that day will haunt me for the rest of my life. I am one of the lucky ones. I knew people that lost friends and family members that day, but I was lucky enough not to lose anyone in my family that day. I remember it so vividly. I was working at Client Services in Saint Charles. I remember someone that sat across from me saying oh my god, and then she explained that her sister called and said that the Pentagon was hit. Ok in my mind I thought, this has got to be a bad accident. Someone was flying a small plane and lost control. That is it. Then the grim news continued. The Twin Towers were hit. Well at this point one building was hit. I called my husband and he was pretty nonchalant about it. He said it was probably just a small plane and the news mistakenly said it was the Pentagon, but it was really the Tower. I continued to call home and my Mom and Dad. I knew that at the time both my sisters and my aunt worked within blocks of the Towers. My husband called with the terrible news. Not only were the reports accurate but he just watched on live TV the second plane hit the Towers. He said it was a huge plane that literally disintergrated immediately. All this time my entire family was trying to reach my sisters and my Aunt. The day dragged by and I finally needed to leave work. There was no way I could sit there and be productive while I was crying hysterically for the safety of my family. At lunch time I talked to my Dad. My older sister had stayed home from work that day, but my baby sister and my Aunt Maryann were down there. My Dad and My brother in law Eddie got in a car and started driving toward the city. Eddie is a police officer so he was able to get a little further into the city and used his employment as a way to get more information. Finally sometime that evening, I would like to say around 5 or 6 pm we got a call that my sister and My aunt had managed to walk across the Brooklyn bridge to safety. My Dad and Eddie were there waiting for them. Finally relief. Relief for me but not them. That day changed the lives of My sister and aunt forever. Maryann was just getting off the subway when the second plane hit. She remembers hearing the loudest sound she had ever heard before. My sister was getting off the subway shortly after. She had the unfortunate experience of hearing screams from the people trapped and then the thump of their bodies hitting the ground after they decided that jumping was better than burning to death. Tricia said for what ever reason, and to this day no one can say for sure what it was, she decided not too look up. Hearing the sounds was enough for her. I think any other person would have been drawn to look even if they knew they would be scarred for life for what they saw. My sister and my Aunt made it to their office building, literally around the corner from the towers and just waited. They were told to stay put and that is what they did. They were both sitting in the lobby of the building when the towers fell. The plume of smoke reached out for miles. Since they were right there, they say in complete black darkness until the air cleared. A good friend of mine told me that her and her mother both ran when the towers fell. They too were right there, and they ran for their lives from the thunder of thousands of pounds of rubble coming toward them like a freight train. My Aunt never returned to work. She retired and moved out of NYC all together. My friend Laura also quit her job and said just getting on the subway now became a horrific experience for her. That day will forever be in my mind. I hope that my life will come and go and I will never have to experience anything like that again. I hope nothing like that happens again within my childrens life or their childrens life! That day a peice of me died. I do not think that anyone that did not live in NYC, or The Washington DC area can really understand how difficult it is. In fact I find my self getting angry when others walk around today like it is just another day.