Just as my grandparents remember where they were when they first heard about Pearl Harbor, and my parents remember JFK, I will always remember 9/11.
I had the day off. Don was getting ready to get in the shower and I was in the kitchen making coffee. It was about 6:45 AM, California time. My mom calls. She's hurrying her words. "Do you have the TV on?" she yells into the phone. "What?" I ask. "Do you have the fucking TV on?" she yells again. All I could think of was Columbine. She was a teacher at La Canada High and I thought there was a shooting. "The country is under attack. New York has been bombed." I turned on the TV and got my first glimpse at a beautiful New York morning, marred by smoke.
I hung up the phone and went to get Don out of the shower. Tom Brokaw was talking about the Pentagon and planes and bombs. I was trying to relay it to Don, and probably not doing a very good job of it. He finally got out of the shower and came into the kitchen to see what the ruckus was about. As I'm trying to tell him what's been going on, I look at the screen and the second tower wasn't there. I think I might have yelled over Brokaw's commentary, "There's supposed to be
two towers. Where is the second one? Where the fuck is the second one?" I watched the early footage of people jumping or falling with horror. I remember hearing someone talking about how hot jet fuel burns -- over 1000 degrees. The images of people jumping, choosing their fate rather than fate choosing them, will stay with me forever.
I lived in NYC for a few years. I knew people who worked in the Towers. AMEX had an on-site office at March McClellan in the North tower. My aunt worked for MM. I had friends in the South tower who worked for my old agency.
I called my dad who confirmed that my aunt, Patricia, was in at work early that day. It was Election Day, and she and her husband, Warren, went to vote and then had breakfast together. She was on the phone with a friend making plans for dinner that night when the first plane hit the North Tower. She never had a chance. They estimate the plane entered between the 92nd and the 99th floors. She was on the 97th, next to the window. If she had been standing and looking out the window while she was on the phone, she probably would have seen the plane coming right at her.
Of course, we didn't know all of that right then. All we knew is that she was at work, but didn't know which tower or what floor. Phone connections to NY were spotty at best and they couldn't get through to Warren to confirm anything.
I called the office to check in. Of course, all hell had broken out there. There were rumors of other hijacked planes. Airports were closing. We had passengers on planes and travel managers were calling to find out where their people were. Our desk that handles CBS was trying to handle all the calls for the western CBS stations and affiliates trying to get to NYC. It was chaos. I spoke to my boss at the time who told me to stay home. She knew that I had friends missing and didn't think having me here would really help. Don went to work, but promised to come home right away. As it turned out, the NFL closed their offices in NYC and decided to close LA as well because no one, at that time knew, who was or was not a target.
I remember standing in the kitchen, watching the second tower collapse. I've been in those towers. Even though it was early, I knew thousands of people had died. If they had been struck even an hour later, at 9:46 AM instead of 8:46 AM, the toll would have been significantly higher.
What I didn't know, until much later, maybe even the next day, is that my aunt, 13 AMEX employees and 3 friends all perished. My aunt and and AMEX employees probably died instantly, maybe even "vaporized," which, given the alternative, might not have been a bad thing. My other 3 friends were in the South Tower. Again, they weren't usually in before 9:00 AM, but had decided to hold a staff meeting prior to work. They were high above the impact point in the South Tower and could not escape. Although this is speculation, they probably knew, at some point, they were going to die.
One of the AMEX employees was actually about to enter the building when the first plane hit. She was hit by the falling landing gear, which crushed both her legs. She survived, but her life was changed forever, like so many that day.
While Don was still at work, before he knew it was closed, I went to the local drug store. I can't remember why I went, but I did get an American flag. While we had lived in the apartment, we didn't really have a place to hang one. We had only been in the new house for about 2 1/2 weeks, and getting a flag had not been a high priority, although I knew I wanted one, harkening back to the days of my dad unfurling the one we had stashed in the coat closet for special occassions. I flew that flag for 1 year, until 9-11-02. It's battered and tattered. This will be the last time I fly it. After today, I will cut it from its pole, fold it, and bury it in Minnesota in honor of my aunt, co-workers and friends as well as the countless others who lost their innocent lives that sunny day -- in New York, in Pennsylvania and in Washington.
My heart aches in remembering the stories of my NY friends -- a huband that was supposed to be doing carpentry work in the North Tower, but who was running late; the husband who was a messenger in the building, but who had just left for a run uptown; those who walked from their mid-town office buildings to Harlem because the trains and buses weren't running; a co-worker here finding out the next day that their mother was safe.
We lost so much that day. Some more than others, but each of us lost something. I don't know if we'll ever recover.
I'm not sure I want to.
I will never forget.
Dedicated to those who so innocently lost their lives.
Though the voice is quiet, the spirit echoes still.
