{where} I was

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I called in sick to work on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.  I had been fighting a terrible flu all weekend.  It was a little before 9 a.m.  I couldn’t sleep well so I stumbled over to my living room with a roll of toilet paper in hand to gather my green snots and plopped myself on the couch and turned on the T.V.  CNN was on the T.V. screen and the camera was focused on two tall buildings, one apparently with a smoking hole on the side of it.  I rubbed my eyes some more and read the words floating at the bottom of the screen that read 


‘A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City’ 
over and over again.  


The reporters were dumbfounded and I was simply intrigued as to what was happening. 

I continued to watch the screen.  It was live and the reporters were simply trying to figure out what in the world was going on.  Then out of nowhere, the second plane crashed into the second tower and that is when all hell broke loose.  The reporters were in a flabbergasted stupor and really had no idea how to report exactly what was occurring right in front of the eyes of every single American tuned in that morning.  The anchor reporting the event was speechless.  At one point he mustered out ‘Good Lord.  There are no words.’  


I was scared.  


I was confused.  


I was worried and for a few seconds I wondered if there were any of my New York relatives in any of those buildings at that very moment of sheer terror because I was in Miami.  I called my mother just in case she knew anyone who worked in the WTC.  The cell phone lines were clogged and everyone I knew was in a panic about the threat that was happening on our East Coast.  Every second of that morning was wildly unpredictable and we were all experiencing the terror that was happening.  


It was an awful day. 

Days later I’d find out that every other one of my co-workers here in Miami had a loved one or friend that died or were still named ‘missing’ in the rubble.  Someone’s brother in-law who worked on the 96^th floor of Tower 1, another’s sister whom had started a new job that week and many more I cannot recall now.  A few years later I’d meet a legal secretary at a law firm I was working at and they’d share with me that they had worked at WTC Tower 2 and that on that morning of 9/11, they were running late to work and simply never made it to the building.  I was always shocked and saddened by the stories.  Those of us that were not physically in New York City that day have undoubtedly been affected in one way or another by the events of that day, nonetheless. 

I’ve tried to explain to my two older daughters what happened on that terrible day ten years ago.  My three year old is too young still.  Perhaps the older two are too young to really comprehend.  They don’t understand the reason why people would want to destroy buildings and harm innocent lives.  They ask, ‘But why Mommy?’  What do I say to that?  Sadly, our children have been born into this ten-year war and religious debacle, if you will.  Their little lives have not known a time when our country has been at peace.  Their world has been tainted with hyper vigilance in US airports and pat downs and not being able to take your own water onto an airplane.  They will never know a time when the words airplane and ‘bomb’ used in combination would not trigger being on a ‘No-Fly List’ even if you’re six-years old.  These are the times we live in.  These are the things that we are afraid of.  9/11 was the day that shaped the world we live in today, the same world our children have to inhabit and experience with us.   

My heart goes out to the families that were forever changed, the lives that were lived too short, the children that have grown up knowing that their mother or father were a hero on that terrible day, as well as, the children, like my own, who will never comprehend the impact that 9/11 had on our entire nation, race and creed and the human condition as a whole.  I can only hope that they will never have to witness the terror and shock that we faced that day. 

Life is unpredictable and mysterious and beautiful and to a child it’s multiplied times ten.  I was twenty-four, single and child-less on September 11, 2001.  Today, on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I’m thirty-four, married and have three incredible daughters but I will never forget the morning that struck us all in some way or another.  Plus, I don’t think that anyone will ever forget where they were on the morning of 9/11.