I’ve been watching the documentaries on 9/11 over the past few days and one of the things that strikes me is how that Manhattan looks like another era entirely. The footage is grainy, the clothes and hairstyles are outdated, even the way the news casters report the news feels old. I watched a video of a woman breaking down in front of a reporter. The reporter swooped in to give her a hug and my first thought was— oh wow, a reporter would never get that close to a stranger now because of COVID.
I was a freshman in college. My brother and I went to the same school, and had actually both decided to skip our first class of the day and grab breakfast instead. We sat on the couch, eating our cereal and turned on the tv expecting to put on some random show. Instead, we watched the second plane hit in real time. We didn’t leave the couch for the rest of the day, and were fearful that the next attack was going to be in Chicago, where we were. It seems so crazy to me that I could tell you every single detail from that morning, down the the rip in the top of the cereal box we were eating. Life was just never the same after that. It was a constant state of fear, for a very long time.
The summer before 9/11, my friends and I took a trip to Cancun to celebrate going off to college. We spent the week with a group of guys we met from NYC. A few of them worked in the towers. This was long before social media was a thing, so after our trip ended, we never spoke to those guys again. I don’t remember their names, but always wondered if they made it out that day. I think about them every year around this time, and am reminded how life is so easily changed.
I was a senior in college in Vermont. My brother worked on the 86th floor of the north tower. He was an investigator for the state and was on his way to work - a few blocks away when he saw a plane his the north tower - pretty much exactly where his office was. He ran toward the building, and while everyone was running down and away, he was running toward and up, as he had police and EMT training. Eventually he was stopped by a firefighter and told he had to go back down. He was helping people find emergency care, and while doing so, the second tower fell and he ducked behind a car. He was found, covered in glass and debris and he was put on a boat to a NJ hospital. I spent the entire day calling his phone (and my parents, also in NY) and couldn’t reach anyone. I assumed he was dead - I was sure of it, why wouldn’t he be? My roommates held my hair while I threw up all day from grief and fear. At around 3:30pm I got a call from a family friend who my brother had finally reached saying he was alive, in a NJ hospital. My parents drove and sat at the entrance to the bridge and waited for hours until they opened the bridges back up so they could go get him. He’s never been the same. First struggling with survivor guilt and now deals with lung scans and bloodwork every year for his “9/11 physical” to ensure the toxins aren’t causing damage 20 years later. We know we were “lucky” that day that we didn’t lose him. My heart breaks into pieces thinking about the other sisters in my same situation who didn’t get that happy ending. That was my experience that day 😔
Wow. I can honestly say that I think yours is the first “average” New Yorker’s story that I have heard. By average I mean, not a first responder, not a family member of a victim, nor someone who was closer to the towers when it happened. Yet still, it is as powerful and important as any of those. As a Minnesotan, I feel as if I couldn’t have been any more disconnected to the events of 9/11, yet the emotions and thoughts that have been running through my head today would make me think otherwise. No matter how close or involved you were, if you are old enough to remember 9/11, your story is important and valid. Although my story from that day doesn’t have a cool ending like I think yours does - I love that you live in that building now. That gave me chills.
I was living in a small town in north-eastern Nevada. I was in 8th grade. I remember my sister waking me up for school and saying, “a plane just hit the twin towers in New York.” I didn’t really know what that meant, but we went to the living room to watch the news and saw the second plane hit. We both looked at each other and didn’t say a word. We knew it was bad. We could see the people jumping and people in the streets screaming. We still had to go to school but we did nothing but watch the news in every class. I don’t remember any of the teachers even talking. We all just sat in horrified silence watching our world as we knew it fall apart. Over the next few weeks we went to several vigils and gatherings to mourn the lives lost even though none of us knew anyone directly impacted. We sent money and supplies to support the Red Cross and similar organizations. There was a definite feeling of unity in America from our small town.
I went to New York in high school for a band trip in 2004. We were in the Boscov’s thanksgiving parade that year. We went to ground zero and saw the steel beams that made a cross and the mess that was still being cleared away, three years later. It was a very emotional moment and I will never forget it. My husband and I made another trip about three years ago and went to the museum and memorial. I cried almost the whole time.
I ran across a post on in my FB history this morning. I was angry at the people who decide how everyone else should grieve or honor or commemorate this day by attacking posts that don’t show the appropriate gravitas. For some, they avoid in order to cope. For some, they have occasions that still need celebrating, like a child’s birthday. It is never anyone’s business to be the post police.
I live on the West Coast (Vegas). Our city had one person who perished, a teacher at a nearby school who was on one of the planes. Some people have personal stories because they knew people in the towers, but for most of us, it was the general sense of “America” that we felt….if that makes sense. My mother in law called to tell us about the first plane, as we were just starting to get up to get ready for work. We watched the rest unfold live on The Today Show. I left late for work and stopped at a 7-11 on the way. All radio stations were covering the news and people who hadn’t turned on tv or radio came inside 7-11 and wondered why everyone was so transfixed, listening so intently. My work at the time was not crucial. I ran a business program through the Chamber of Commerce. But we were in the final stages of planning the opening weekend of the 9-month program, scheduled for that weekend…at Nellis Air Force Base. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to get in contact with anyone at the base. We knew without a doubt we’d have to move it. We had attendees stranded in other states who had planned on flying home in the next day or two. Aside from going to the airport 3 days later to watch the first planes land, that is the extent of my 9/11 story.
I saw a meme today that horrified me. I am certain that it is mostly my reaction, because I understand the message behind it, but I found it horrible. It said “I miss 9/12”. It went on to say that they’d never wish for 9/11 to happen but that everyone on 9/12 was focused on America and not on divisions like race, gender, political party, etc. I can’t be the only person that found it was way off base, right? Unified through immense tragedy is not a desirable identification of unity.
I grew up in Northern NJ, 10 minutes from the GWB. I was 5 years old at the time with a 3-year-old brother and 1-year-old sister. I had just started kindergarten while my mother, 38, was at home with my two younger siblings. As I sat in school that day, thhe first plane from Logan airport likely flew directly over us as it cut across the northeast corner of NJ to Manhattan. My father was head of the Office of Emergency Management for Union City, NJ and was on his way to work but diverted to Liberty State Park and began calling all the New Jersey hospitals who sent beds, doctors, ambulances, etc. to set up a triage center. At that time, the thought was that due to the twin towers being so far south in Manhattan, it was closer and faster to bring the overflow of victims across the river to New Jersey for treatment as there would be so many hurt and wounded.
My mother tried to pull me out of school and asked if they were evacuating the schools due to our county being so close to NYC. The secretary informed her that they couldn't close the schools because they didn't know whose parents wouldn't be coming to pick them up that day.
My mother describes that day as the worst day of her life. She had three young children, we were just miles from the city and she describes feeling powerless and unable to protect her babies if other catastrophes would strike (if the GWB would be blown up, if bombs would begin to be dropped in the surrounding areas). She stood in the kitchen, holding my three year old brother, realizing she would be raising her kids in a radically different world.
All day, my father waited at Liberty State Park with the teams of doctors and nurses but not one ferry came. There was simply no one alive to save. While they were prepared to take on hundreds of wounded victims, when the towers fell, they left no one. My father today describes how awful this was to wait, to see the towers fall and continue waiting, hoping that there would be living victims, waiting with hospital teams from across New Jersey for one that they could save.
Every story from that day is important, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
I was 17 and living in southwestern Pennsylvania, about an hour from the Flight 93 crash site. As a rebellious teenager, I had quit school at the end of my junior year that previous spring, gotten my first job selling MCI long distance, and met a boy that I quickly shocked up with because I was an ADULT (haha).
Fast forward to September 10th. I had left the boy who was all wrong for me, quit my job, and moved back into my mom's. I had a doctor's appointment on this day, where I found out I was 8 weeks pregnant. I was devastated to be the stereotypical pregnant teen dropout. Wrapped in my own selfish anguish, I spent the rest of the day crying in bed and fell asleep early.
I woke up on the 11th feeling pretty defeated and depressed, not knowing what I was going to do with my future. I turned on the TV and tuned to MTV, only it wasn't MTV, it was CBS news. It was 859 in the morning, I just wanted to watch a music video and wake up properly. I specifically remember being extremely angry about how inconvenient this was to me. I grabbed the remote to change it to VH1, but stopped as I actually started listening to what the newscaster was saying. I sat down, feeling my heart plummet to the floor, as the second plane crashed on live television.
NYC is approximately 4 hours from me, and this felt too close to home. I tried to call my mom, but cell service was jammed. I continued to sit in front of the television with tears streaming down my face, and then the pentagon was hit. Panic started to set in. The thought that this was truly the end of the world kept running through my mind, and guilt for feeling so bad about my situation overcame my self pity. It was so much larger than me, and my silly little problems, and it was HEAVY stuff. I continued to stare transfixed at the TV for quite some time, and right before 11AM, the broadcaster announced that a plane had crashed in somerset county, Pennsylvania. Everything after that announcement and the immediate panic attack that followed is a blur.
The majority of us weren't RIGHT THERE when the world stopped turning. We are so very lucky for that. We all have equally powerful stories of that day, though, because in our hearts we were all RIGHT THERE. After the attacks, I had made up my mind to become a teenage mom and do my damndest to raise a child in a world I no longer recognized. Several of my friends were sent to the various attack locations to assist with picking up the pieces. Everything had changed.
20 years later, my 19 year old son knows my story, because its his story as well. I dont tell it to many, probably for the same reasons most of us don't. It doesn't seem as important as some of the other stories. It is, though. Our stories are part of the collective whole of 9/11. I loved reading everyone's, and I believe that from now on, I'll share mine a little more often.
Thank you so much for sharing. I think that it is beautiful and meaningful that the place you now call home and have raised a family was where you were able to begin to heal from your association to this tragic event. While I understand your hesitance to think your experience “matters” as much as someone’s who had perished or been directly connected to the tragedies of the day, EVERYONE’s experiences of that day matter. Because if we don’t ALL keep talking about the experiences, future generations will not know the true impact, will not know how important it is to show reverence to all who lost their lives and all those who were forced to go on without loved ones. They will not know that shared sense of loss of not just lives but peace, security and freedom. The unity we all were able to find afterward and have often times lately seem to forget.
Again- thanks for sharing you. God bless all who lost that day and may we never forget.
I was 18 years old, a Canadian and living in Vancouver. I happened to be visiting my parents (in a small town about an hour from where I lived). I was still asleep but my mom was up and my younger brother was getting ready for school. My mom turned on the news and I was woken up by her yelling down to my brother to “turn on the news”. Weirdly enough, my very first thought was “someone shot the President”. I have no idea why but I knew just from the tone of her voice that whatever was happening was really bad. Again, being Canadian and on the opposite side of the continent it seemed weird that I thought about the American President. We watched the news for hours before we had to go out and pick up some paint supplies for what we were supposed to be doing that day. I went to Starbucks and they had signs up saying they were closed because of the terrorist attacks. For whatever reason, a coffee shop, in a small town, in a different country, being closed really hit home for me the fact that the world was forever changed.
I remember reading your story back on your blog, but I had forgotten you now live in that apartment. Growing up I remember making 9/11 memorials in class, but not much else besides the basic story of what happened. Every year I read more and more stories (HONY just posted a good one of someone who used to live right by the towers). Thanks for sharing your story and opening up a forum on a very hard day for all.
I’d actually just googled to find your old post about your 9/11 story to share with my sister. We were both in college nearly 1000 miles away from NYC that day but the shock and horror is still vivid. It has been strange to watch the news this week and realize the reporters are recounting the events of that day to now adults who are too young to remember. And to have to offer a brief explanation to my 7 & 5 year old after they saw a photo of the WTC. It still feels too fresh to be “history” and I only watched from afar.
I was in Fairfax Hospital, right outside of DC, just starting the third rotation of my third year of medical school, psychiatry. The only thing I remember about actually being on the psych ward that day was stopping our morning meeting to briefly watch “The Today Show” after the first plane had hit the World Trade Center. I vaguely remember someone coming in later to tell us that a second plane had hit the other tower.
After that, the day is a blur. I remember all of the medical students being called down to the ICU over the loudspeakers. I remember unplugging monitors that I didn’t understand and rushing patients, in their beds, out of the ICU and into rooms on the regular floors, making room for the survivors we thought we’d get from the Pentagon. I remember setting up a makeshift ER in the lobby of the hospital. I remember being so ready to help, but then being told that the only calls we’d gotten were for body bags. I remember sneaking into hospital rooms and watching snippets of the news, trying to figure out what was going on. I remember vaguely knowing that another plane was missing, possibly headed for DC. I’ll never forget that day.
But I’ll also never forget the days that followed. My mom had to mail me an American flag to duct tape to my car’s antenna, because there wasn’t a single flag to be had in our nation’s capital. They were all on cars, on doorsteps, everywhere. There was not a highway overpass in DC that wasn’t draped with a flag, a sign, or a banner.
The loss of life on this day twenty years ago makes me incredibly sad. But so does the fact that I cannot imagine our country coming together like that now, like we did in the days after 9/11. I remember being so proud to be a part of that America, and I hope my children know that country someday.
I was 27. I worked for British Airways. Over here in the UK, Newcastle upon Tyne. It was lunch time. A colleague came running onto our floor and told us to turn the taps on. We all stood in silence then the phones started ending and they didn't stop. "My child is travelling as an unaccompanied minor, where is she?", " My husband is on a flight to NYC, he's over half way, where is his flight landing?", "my daughter is cabin crew...ease tell me she is safe.". We checked flight manifests to see where our colleagues were, had anyone travelled on a staff ticket? What about our colleagues who worked in the towers? Day tuned to night and turned to day again but we stayed at work the company ordered food in, then about 24 hours later taxis and none of us had slept and they didn't want us to drive we cried with out colleagues, we cried with our customers on the phone we cried as we tried to get hold of famy and friends in New York, all of the time the TV's stayed on and we consumed it all. Then just as we started wondering were the hell all of these flights were going to land the people of Nova Scotia did the most incredible thing and opened their homes and communities to over 8000 scared and confused travelers and airline crew. The world seemed a lot scarier that day but also a whole lot smaller and I chose to see the best in people. I will never forget what the people of Halifax did it was quite incredible.
This morning this memory came up on Facebook, of something I wrote in my blog 10 years ago when I was an au pair in Boston. I had never visited the US prior to 9/11 and my first time in the US was in 2004 when I worked at a summer camp.
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11 September, 2011:
For the last 10 years, the anniversary of 9/11 has passed with little acknowledgement in “my world”. The date is remembered, and there is usually a large article in the newspaper, but nothing to the extent of that here. As an Australian, the horror that unfolded that day in 2001, although affecting me indirectly through my country joining the United States in the war against terror, did not affect me directly. At the time, I certainly didn’t know anybody who was affected by the attacks on the World Trade Centre or the Pentagon. I didn’t know anybody on United flight 93. I didn’t even know anybody who lived in the United States. I had never visited. To me, a 16 year old high school student, the United States was SO far away – somewhere I’d hopefully visit one day, but somewhere I had only seen picture of. Even now, I don’t have a visual memory of having seen a picture of the New York City skyline pre-9/11.
But being in the United States on the 10th Anniversary of the attacks makes it seem that bit more real. I turned on the TV this morning and the news was playing over the news that was broadcast on 9/11/01. The newscasters speculating on how a plane could have flown into a tower on such a clear summers day. And then, the horror as the second plane hits. One thing that I saw this morning, that I don’t remember seeing ten years ago, was the collapse of the second tower, how it was reduced to rubble in what seems like seconds; and with that, the crowds of people running down the streets away from the huge cloud of dust and debris, that engulfed NYC like a tidal wave.
I was trying to remember as best I could what I remember about that day. I remember waking up in the morning on what was September 12 in Australia, and my mum was sitting in front of the TV. This was strange, because my mum ran a restaurant at the time, and generally didn’t get up in the morning before my sister and I (who was 14 at the time) left for school. I remember her telling me that she thought about waking me, but because I was in the middle of preparations for my 11th grade yearly exams, she’d left me to sleep. I still to this day wish she’d woken me. Other than that, I don’t remember any other conversation we had.
I remember going to school, and sitting in Mrs. Evers Society & Culture class and watching the news on the TV. I remember thinking that World War 3 was about to start. When we went out to lunch, we sat in B-Quad and I’m pretty sure that’s all we talked about. Every now and then I would look up into the sky and expect to see Army planes or something that signified war.
We were living on a military base in Canada where my ex was posted. That morning we were heading to my mum's to drop my youngest off as I was having minor surgery. The news about the first plane broke over the radio - we thought it was just a small plane like a Cesna. When we got to my mum's the 2nd plane had just hit. We watched in shock. At the hospital everyone, doctors, nurses and others were gathered in the waiting rooms in shock. It was so quiet. The third plane had hit the Pentagon and there was a fourth missing. As soon as my surgery was completed we headed back to the base. Everything changed - the base was on lockdown and the regiments started preparing to deploy overseas. It would be different from previous deployments as they were no longer peacekeepers but something more. We had friends sent to NYC to help with the efforts. Life was never the same after that. On that day we realized that we were all one family and that our family was hurt.
I was a freshman in college. My brother and I went to the same school, and had actually both decided to skip our first class of the day and grab breakfast instead. We sat on the couch, eating our cereal and turned on the tv expecting to put on some random show. Instead, we watched the second plane hit in real time. We didn’t leave the couch for the rest of the day, and were fearful that the next attack was going to be in Chicago, where we were. It seems so crazy to me that I could tell you every single detail from that morning, down the the rip in the top of the cereal box we were eating. Life was just never the same after that. It was a constant state of fear, for a very long time.
The summer before 9/11, my friends and I took a trip to Cancun to celebrate going off to college. We spent the week with a group of guys we met from NYC. A few of them worked in the towers. This was long before social media was a thing, so after our trip ended, we never spoke to those guys again. I don’t remember their names, but always wondered if they made it out that day. I think about them every year around this time, and am reminded how life is so easily changed.
I was a senior in college in Vermont. My brother worked on the 86th floor of the north tower. He was an investigator for the state and was on his way to work - a few blocks away when he saw a plane his the north tower - pretty much exactly where his office was. He ran toward the building, and while everyone was running down and away, he was running toward and up, as he had police and EMT training. Eventually he was stopped by a firefighter and told he had to go back down. He was helping people find emergency care, and while doing so, the second tower fell and he ducked behind a car. He was found, covered in glass and debris and he was put on a boat to a NJ hospital. I spent the entire day calling his phone (and my parents, also in NY) and couldn’t reach anyone. I assumed he was dead - I was sure of it, why wouldn’t he be? My roommates held my hair while I threw up all day from grief and fear. At around 3:30pm I got a call from a family friend who my brother had finally reached saying he was alive, in a NJ hospital. My parents drove and sat at the entrance to the bridge and waited for hours until they opened the bridges back up so they could go get him. He’s never been the same. First struggling with survivor guilt and now deals with lung scans and bloodwork every year for his “9/11 physical” to ensure the toxins aren’t causing damage 20 years later. We know we were “lucky” that day that we didn’t lose him. My heart breaks into pieces thinking about the other sisters in my same situation who didn’t get that happy ending. That was my experience that day 😔
Wow. I can honestly say that I think yours is the first “average” New Yorker’s story that I have heard. By average I mean, not a first responder, not a family member of a victim, nor someone who was closer to the towers when it happened. Yet still, it is as powerful and important as any of those. As a Minnesotan, I feel as if I couldn’t have been any more disconnected to the events of 9/11, yet the emotions and thoughts that have been running through my head today would make me think otherwise. No matter how close or involved you were, if you are old enough to remember 9/11, your story is important and valid. Although my story from that day doesn’t have a cool ending like I think yours does - I love that you live in that building now. That gave me chills.
I was living in a small town in north-eastern Nevada. I was in 8th grade. I remember my sister waking me up for school and saying, “a plane just hit the twin towers in New York.” I didn’t really know what that meant, but we went to the living room to watch the news and saw the second plane hit. We both looked at each other and didn’t say a word. We knew it was bad. We could see the people jumping and people in the streets screaming. We still had to go to school but we did nothing but watch the news in every class. I don’t remember any of the teachers even talking. We all just sat in horrified silence watching our world as we knew it fall apart. Over the next few weeks we went to several vigils and gatherings to mourn the lives lost even though none of us knew anyone directly impacted. We sent money and supplies to support the Red Cross and similar organizations. There was a definite feeling of unity in America from our small town.
I went to New York in high school for a band trip in 2004. We were in the Boscov’s thanksgiving parade that year. We went to ground zero and saw the steel beams that made a cross and the mess that was still being cleared away, three years later. It was a very emotional moment and I will never forget it. My husband and I made another trip about three years ago and went to the museum and memorial. I cried almost the whole time.
I ran across a post on in my FB history this morning. I was angry at the people who decide how everyone else should grieve or honor or commemorate this day by attacking posts that don’t show the appropriate gravitas. For some, they avoid in order to cope. For some, they have occasions that still need celebrating, like a child’s birthday. It is never anyone’s business to be the post police.
I live on the West Coast (Vegas). Our city had one person who perished, a teacher at a nearby school who was on one of the planes. Some people have personal stories because they knew people in the towers, but for most of us, it was the general sense of “America” that we felt….if that makes sense. My mother in law called to tell us about the first plane, as we were just starting to get up to get ready for work. We watched the rest unfold live on The Today Show. I left late for work and stopped at a 7-11 on the way. All radio stations were covering the news and people who hadn’t turned on tv or radio came inside 7-11 and wondered why everyone was so transfixed, listening so intently. My work at the time was not crucial. I ran a business program through the Chamber of Commerce. But we were in the final stages of planning the opening weekend of the 9-month program, scheduled for that weekend…at Nellis Air Force Base. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to get in contact with anyone at the base. We knew without a doubt we’d have to move it. We had attendees stranded in other states who had planned on flying home in the next day or two. Aside from going to the airport 3 days later to watch the first planes land, that is the extent of my 9/11 story.
I saw a meme today that horrified me. I am certain that it is mostly my reaction, because I understand the message behind it, but I found it horrible. It said “I miss 9/12”. It went on to say that they’d never wish for 9/11 to happen but that everyone on 9/12 was focused on America and not on divisions like race, gender, political party, etc. I can’t be the only person that found it was way off base, right? Unified through immense tragedy is not a desirable identification of unity.
I grew up in Northern NJ, 10 minutes from the GWB. I was 5 years old at the time with a 3-year-old brother and 1-year-old sister. I had just started kindergarten while my mother, 38, was at home with my two younger siblings. As I sat in school that day, thhe first plane from Logan airport likely flew directly over us as it cut across the northeast corner of NJ to Manhattan. My father was head of the Office of Emergency Management for Union City, NJ and was on his way to work but diverted to Liberty State Park and began calling all the New Jersey hospitals who sent beds, doctors, ambulances, etc. to set up a triage center. At that time, the thought was that due to the twin towers being so far south in Manhattan, it was closer and faster to bring the overflow of victims across the river to New Jersey for treatment as there would be so many hurt and wounded.
My mother tried to pull me out of school and asked if they were evacuating the schools due to our county being so close to NYC. The secretary informed her that they couldn't close the schools because they didn't know whose parents wouldn't be coming to pick them up that day.
My mother describes that day as the worst day of her life. She had three young children, we were just miles from the city and she describes feeling powerless and unable to protect her babies if other catastrophes would strike (if the GWB would be blown up, if bombs would begin to be dropped in the surrounding areas). She stood in the kitchen, holding my three year old brother, realizing she would be raising her kids in a radically different world.
All day, my father waited at Liberty State Park with the teams of doctors and nurses but not one ferry came. There was simply no one alive to save. While they were prepared to take on hundreds of wounded victims, when the towers fell, they left no one. My father today describes how awful this was to wait, to see the towers fall and continue waiting, hoping that there would be living victims, waiting with hospital teams from across New Jersey for one that they could save.
Every story from that day is important, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
I was 17 and living in southwestern Pennsylvania, about an hour from the Flight 93 crash site. As a rebellious teenager, I had quit school at the end of my junior year that previous spring, gotten my first job selling MCI long distance, and met a boy that I quickly shocked up with because I was an ADULT (haha).
Fast forward to September 10th. I had left the boy who was all wrong for me, quit my job, and moved back into my mom's. I had a doctor's appointment on this day, where I found out I was 8 weeks pregnant. I was devastated to be the stereotypical pregnant teen dropout. Wrapped in my own selfish anguish, I spent the rest of the day crying in bed and fell asleep early.
I woke up on the 11th feeling pretty defeated and depressed, not knowing what I was going to do with my future. I turned on the TV and tuned to MTV, only it wasn't MTV, it was CBS news. It was 859 in the morning, I just wanted to watch a music video and wake up properly. I specifically remember being extremely angry about how inconvenient this was to me. I grabbed the remote to change it to VH1, but stopped as I actually started listening to what the newscaster was saying. I sat down, feeling my heart plummet to the floor, as the second plane crashed on live television.
NYC is approximately 4 hours from me, and this felt too close to home. I tried to call my mom, but cell service was jammed. I continued to sit in front of the television with tears streaming down my face, and then the pentagon was hit. Panic started to set in. The thought that this was truly the end of the world kept running through my mind, and guilt for feeling so bad about my situation overcame my self pity. It was so much larger than me, and my silly little problems, and it was HEAVY stuff. I continued to stare transfixed at the TV for quite some time, and right before 11AM, the broadcaster announced that a plane had crashed in somerset county, Pennsylvania. Everything after that announcement and the immediate panic attack that followed is a blur.
The majority of us weren't RIGHT THERE when the world stopped turning. We are so very lucky for that. We all have equally powerful stories of that day, though, because in our hearts we were all RIGHT THERE. After the attacks, I had made up my mind to become a teenage mom and do my damndest to raise a child in a world I no longer recognized. Several of my friends were sent to the various attack locations to assist with picking up the pieces. Everything had changed.
20 years later, my 19 year old son knows my story, because its his story as well. I dont tell it to many, probably for the same reasons most of us don't. It doesn't seem as important as some of the other stories. It is, though. Our stories are part of the collective whole of 9/11. I loved reading everyone's, and I believe that from now on, I'll share mine a little more often.
Thank you so much for sharing. I think that it is beautiful and meaningful that the place you now call home and have raised a family was where you were able to begin to heal from your association to this tragic event. While I understand your hesitance to think your experience “matters” as much as someone’s who had perished or been directly connected to the tragedies of the day, EVERYONE’s experiences of that day matter. Because if we don’t ALL keep talking about the experiences, future generations will not know the true impact, will not know how important it is to show reverence to all who lost their lives and all those who were forced to go on without loved ones. They will not know that shared sense of loss of not just lives but peace, security and freedom. The unity we all were able to find afterward and have often times lately seem to forget.
Again- thanks for sharing you. God bless all who lost that day and may we never forget.
I love how that construction site where you and your Dad were standing is your apartment to this day. That’s so special!
Thank you for sharing.
I was 18 years old, a Canadian and living in Vancouver. I happened to be visiting my parents (in a small town about an hour from where I lived). I was still asleep but my mom was up and my younger brother was getting ready for school. My mom turned on the news and I was woken up by her yelling down to my brother to “turn on the news”. Weirdly enough, my very first thought was “someone shot the President”. I have no idea why but I knew just from the tone of her voice that whatever was happening was really bad. Again, being Canadian and on the opposite side of the continent it seemed weird that I thought about the American President. We watched the news for hours before we had to go out and pick up some paint supplies for what we were supposed to be doing that day. I went to Starbucks and they had signs up saying they were closed because of the terrorist attacks. For whatever reason, a coffee shop, in a small town, in a different country, being closed really hit home for me the fact that the world was forever changed.
I remember reading your story back on your blog, but I had forgotten you now live in that apartment. Growing up I remember making 9/11 memorials in class, but not much else besides the basic story of what happened. Every year I read more and more stories (HONY just posted a good one of someone who used to live right by the towers). Thanks for sharing your story and opening up a forum on a very hard day for all.
I’d actually just googled to find your old post about your 9/11 story to share with my sister. We were both in college nearly 1000 miles away from NYC that day but the shock and horror is still vivid. It has been strange to watch the news this week and realize the reporters are recounting the events of that day to now adults who are too young to remember. And to have to offer a brief explanation to my 7 & 5 year old after they saw a photo of the WTC. It still feels too fresh to be “history” and I only watched from afar.
I posted this on Facebook this morning.
I was in Fairfax Hospital, right outside of DC, just starting the third rotation of my third year of medical school, psychiatry. The only thing I remember about actually being on the psych ward that day was stopping our morning meeting to briefly watch “The Today Show” after the first plane had hit the World Trade Center. I vaguely remember someone coming in later to tell us that a second plane had hit the other tower.
After that, the day is a blur. I remember all of the medical students being called down to the ICU over the loudspeakers. I remember unplugging monitors that I didn’t understand and rushing patients, in their beds, out of the ICU and into rooms on the regular floors, making room for the survivors we thought we’d get from the Pentagon. I remember setting up a makeshift ER in the lobby of the hospital. I remember being so ready to help, but then being told that the only calls we’d gotten were for body bags. I remember sneaking into hospital rooms and watching snippets of the news, trying to figure out what was going on. I remember vaguely knowing that another plane was missing, possibly headed for DC. I’ll never forget that day.
But I’ll also never forget the days that followed. My mom had to mail me an American flag to duct tape to my car’s antenna, because there wasn’t a single flag to be had in our nation’s capital. They were all on cars, on doorsteps, everywhere. There was not a highway overpass in DC that wasn’t draped with a flag, a sign, or a banner.
The loss of life on this day twenty years ago makes me incredibly sad. But so does the fact that I cannot imagine our country coming together like that now, like we did in the days after 9/11. I remember being so proud to be a part of that America, and I hope my children know that country someday.
I was 27. I worked for British Airways. Over here in the UK, Newcastle upon Tyne. It was lunch time. A colleague came running onto our floor and told us to turn the taps on. We all stood in silence then the phones started ending and they didn't stop. "My child is travelling as an unaccompanied minor, where is she?", " My husband is on a flight to NYC, he's over half way, where is his flight landing?", "my daughter is cabin crew...ease tell me she is safe.". We checked flight manifests to see where our colleagues were, had anyone travelled on a staff ticket? What about our colleagues who worked in the towers? Day tuned to night and turned to day again but we stayed at work the company ordered food in, then about 24 hours later taxis and none of us had slept and they didn't want us to drive we cried with out colleagues, we cried with our customers on the phone we cried as we tried to get hold of famy and friends in New York, all of the time the TV's stayed on and we consumed it all. Then just as we started wondering were the hell all of these flights were going to land the people of Nova Scotia did the most incredible thing and opened their homes and communities to over 8000 scared and confused travelers and airline crew. The world seemed a lot scarier that day but also a whole lot smaller and I chose to see the best in people. I will never forget what the people of Halifax did it was quite incredible.
This morning this memory came up on Facebook, of something I wrote in my blog 10 years ago when I was an au pair in Boston. I had never visited the US prior to 9/11 and my first time in the US was in 2004 when I worked at a summer camp.
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11 September, 2011:
For the last 10 years, the anniversary of 9/11 has passed with little acknowledgement in “my world”. The date is remembered, and there is usually a large article in the newspaper, but nothing to the extent of that here. As an Australian, the horror that unfolded that day in 2001, although affecting me indirectly through my country joining the United States in the war against terror, did not affect me directly. At the time, I certainly didn’t know anybody who was affected by the attacks on the World Trade Centre or the Pentagon. I didn’t know anybody on United flight 93. I didn’t even know anybody who lived in the United States. I had never visited. To me, a 16 year old high school student, the United States was SO far away – somewhere I’d hopefully visit one day, but somewhere I had only seen picture of. Even now, I don’t have a visual memory of having seen a picture of the New York City skyline pre-9/11.
But being in the United States on the 10th Anniversary of the attacks makes it seem that bit more real. I turned on the TV this morning and the news was playing over the news that was broadcast on 9/11/01. The newscasters speculating on how a plane could have flown into a tower on such a clear summers day. And then, the horror as the second plane hits. One thing that I saw this morning, that I don’t remember seeing ten years ago, was the collapse of the second tower, how it was reduced to rubble in what seems like seconds; and with that, the crowds of people running down the streets away from the huge cloud of dust and debris, that engulfed NYC like a tidal wave.
I was trying to remember as best I could what I remember about that day. I remember waking up in the morning on what was September 12 in Australia, and my mum was sitting in front of the TV. This was strange, because my mum ran a restaurant at the time, and generally didn’t get up in the morning before my sister and I (who was 14 at the time) left for school. I remember her telling me that she thought about waking me, but because I was in the middle of preparations for my 11th grade yearly exams, she’d left me to sleep. I still to this day wish she’d woken me. Other than that, I don’t remember any other conversation we had.
I remember going to school, and sitting in Mrs. Evers Society & Culture class and watching the news on the TV. I remember thinking that World War 3 was about to start. When we went out to lunch, we sat in B-Quad and I’m pretty sure that’s all we talked about. Every now and then I would look up into the sky and expect to see Army planes or something that signified war.
We were living on a military base in Canada where my ex was posted. That morning we were heading to my mum's to drop my youngest off as I was having minor surgery. The news about the first plane broke over the radio - we thought it was just a small plane like a Cesna. When we got to my mum's the 2nd plane had just hit. We watched in shock. At the hospital everyone, doctors, nurses and others were gathered in the waiting rooms in shock. It was so quiet. The third plane had hit the Pentagon and there was a fourth missing. As soon as my surgery was completed we headed back to the base. Everything changed - the base was on lockdown and the regiments started preparing to deploy overseas. It would be different from previous deployments as they were no longer peacekeepers but something more. We had friends sent to NYC to help with the efforts. Life was never the same after that. On that day we realized that we were all one family and that our family was hurt.