I clearly remember this day, 2001. I was in college, and I had just left tutoring in the math department (I suck at math). I went outside, called my boyfriend (now husband) up on the cellphone, told him I was done, I was free until afternoon, and maybe we could get lunch. That was when he told me. I remember I had been merrily walking down the broad staircase from that math building, feeling cheery, when his voice came over the phone pitched higher than usual. "They've flown planes into the World Trade Center," he cried out in a panic. "The Pentagon's been hit too. They think there are other planes going to crash into places. It's World War Three!" he screamed, perhaps exaggerating, but I could hear he was terrified.
I stopped dead in my tracks in the middle of that broad stairway. I almost stumbled and fell as my head plummeted and the world seemed to tilt off its axis. "...That's not funny."
"Babe...this is no joke. Have you really not heard the news?"
I had noticed crowds around the computers in the math lab, but I thought it was some new program a geek wrote. Standing on those stairs, and I had a good view of the area. Only then did I notice groups huddled and crying, people wandering aimlessly with empty eyes, and pale faces looking stunned beyond the ability to think.>
"...The Pentagon?" I asked in a quavering voice.
Face it, before 9/11 the idea of flying planes into the Twin Towers was not unknown. It was a plot device used in movies and TV shows. I assure you, you will NEVER see those episodes on the air again!
So for those of us at the time, it seemed...stereotypical! Too "Hollywood" to really be happening.
But the Pentagon! At hearing about the WTC, I truly thought he was joking, but that...that's serious shit. You don't mess with the goddamn Pentagon!
"Honey, I'm picking you up. Classes will likely be cancelled anyway. They're talking about suicide bombers on buses and trains. I don't want you on that city bus. Stay on campus. I'm on my way. NOW!"
Suddenly, I joined the ranks of blank-eyed students. I wandered toward the parking lot and tried to process this information. Most of you seeing this were too young. You heard about 9/11 in school history class. Maybe...maaaybe you sort of remember your parents speaking in hushed voices. It's "history" to you.
But on that day, it felt like there would be no future. Time stopped. Our lives stopped. Airplanes grounded, trains stopped, schools closed, no one left their homes. For the next few days, people feared all-out war.
I went to my boyfriend's place just in time to see the Towers collapse. I'm a writer, and I honestly can't describe the chill and numbed disbelief that hit us all when we saw that. The scene has been replayed so much, younger people are immune to it, but when we saw it the first time.....
I would say we all prayed. All of us. Either to God, Allah, Buddha, a goddess, a higher power, or to that which we didn't believe in before that day... we all cried out in anguish for this to not be true, to wake up, to let this horrific nightmare stop...just STOP... please God, don't let any more people die!
And then the other Tower fell. Our prayers were not answered. There was no Superman or Captain America to save us that day. We were abandoned, left to fight this tragedy on our own. We realized how childish our country can be, sitting by our TVs as we watch the chaos in "other countries" and shrugging that it wasn't affecting us, so why worry. That day, the eyes of the world were on us, and we felt like the child-country we really are. Hell visited America that day, and we were watching the flames burn away our innocence.
I truly don't remember the rest of that day. It was a Tuesday, like today. My boyfriend drove me home. The freeways were empty for once. At home, my sister was in hysterics. She had been on a business call with someone in the Towers when the first plane struck, and she realized that the man likely died on impact. A friend lived in NYC across the river; he witnessed the whole thing and was helping to shelter survivors who fled over the bridge on foot. A cousin lived mere blocks away from the WTC, and we were terrified for her (she was safe, thankfully). I didn't go to school the next day. I got a call from the dean's office that the college would be closed all week. Like I said, time stopped, and all of America was waiting, left hanging, frightened at what more would strike us.
I think NOT having anything else happen was stressful too. We were waiting, expecting it. We were loading our guns, those same guns the government had been trying to take from us. If terrorists were coming to American shores, by God we would meet them head on and send them to Hell!
Nothing happened. We mourned. We heard stories of heroes. We wondered "who did this to us" and not knowing who to blame, who to punish, who to direct our collective RAGE toward was frustrating too. There was an enemy out there, and we didn't know WHO! Despite the uncertainties that hung in the air over the following days and weeks, America united unlike it had ever done in decades, probably since World War II. Flags waved from every car. People wore black bands around their arms (I still have mine). Bands played "America the Beautiful" to start every concert. For the first time in my life, I saw what it meant to be the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
"United" indeed!
If you live in America, you'll see lots of "Never Forget" signs today, but for those of us old enough to have truly lived through it, forgetting is impossible. Even when we sometimes want to...we can't! That bloody, fiery day of death and destruction, when terrorists thought they could rip out the very heart of America, indeed left a scar on our hearts.
But you know what? Scars make us stronger. Scars remind us.
We CAN'T forget!
