9/11 Attacks, September 11th, By Annonymous

From MemoryArchive

Who: Annonymous
What: September 11th
When: Sep. 11 2001
Where: Maine

This is my experience of that day, at least some of it.

I had just biked over to the gym here and when I walked in I heard people saying that "they" had bombed the WTC and then the Pentagon. What?? That's crazy! We all crowded into the maintenance closet where we watched a b&w tv. I had an overwhenlming compulsion to call my husband at work - the company should go on high security (as if my thoughts on that were necessary), and my Mom. We had just been in NYC that weekend to see the Wayne Thiebaud exhibit. We had not been there for twenty years or so. As we were leaving on the train I pointed out the WTC to my husband and mentioned the 1993 attack.

As I wandered about the gym, I remembered that my friend's husband flies for American out of Boston. I tried calling her. No answer. Got home and tried again. And, again. The video of the building collapsing made we want to throw up, or faint. I told my husband I needed him to come home. I called my friend and she answered the phone cheerily. They were in the yard working and had no idea what had happened, no idea why their crazy friend was hysterical on the phone - hysterical with relief. It's not any better that it was not my friend's husband, it is still too awful for thought much less for words. My relief was that my friend would not have the pain of her family coming apart.

I got a shower, my husband came home. I stopped being hysterical, although I was still crying and sick at heart. I keep watching the tv trying to actually believe this has happened. Removing those buildings from the skyline of NYC that lives in my head is like removing some vital part of language from my vocabulary.

Co-opted from Wikipedia's 9/11 Personal Experiences