Its the anniversary of 911 again. Lot of emotions and feelings opened up again for so many people. I was in New Orleans at a training on 911. I'd been there for a day. I was staying at a hotel in the French Quarter, which happened to be directly across the street from a strip joint (didn't think my company was really winning one for family values that day). I woke up that morning around 8:30, and flipped on the news. I'm an info junkie, so I love listening to news. I flip to CNN, and there's a live feed of the Trade Center, a few minutes after the first plane struck. The shot was showing the tower burning. I thought to myself "oh man, some idiot flew his plane into the trade center". It looked bad, but I thought " a tragic accident", nothing more. I continue getting dressed, watching the tv, listening to the commentary.Suddenly, coming in from the right of the screen, I see the 2nd plane strike. That's when I know. "We're under attack". That's when the sense of horror starts growing. And it never stopped. Later in the day, the FAA grounds every plane in the air. The towers continue to burn, people begin leaping out of windows in desperation. A lot of the people at the training I was attending were from our New York office. We were all scared and worried. We tried to soldier on through the training anyway. Later on, the towers collapsed. Word came that the Pentagon was hit, and the first reports came in about the plane crashing in Pennsylvania.
The whole country was in shock. With the planes grounded, none of us could fly out, and were now looking for alternative means of travel. Rental cars quickly ran out. At that point, as far as I knew, the country was under attack, no telling what was going to happen next. I just wanted to get home to my family. I hopped a bus the next day for home, at the time, in Detroit. It took 14 or 15 hours to get home. But once I was back with my family, I was more ready for whatever was coming next.
A lot has happened since then. What's your 9/11 story?
I was in the Coronary Care Family Waiting Area awaiting word on my mother's heart procedure. Six weeks prior, she had had her first heart attack, and three weeks after that, she had a second. So that morning, my father and I dutifully got up at "Dark:30" to take her to the hospital. After saying our "I Love Yous," we realized we were HUNGRY, so we went down the street for breakfast at Perkins-I had a short stack of Strawberry Pancakes, he, a full (traditional family meal since before I can remember). On our way back to the hospital, we were listening to the Tom Joyner Morning Show talking about the first plane hitting Tower 1, and how clearly some Air Traffic Controller had screwed up royally. By the time we parked the car and got back to the Waiting Area, the second plane had collided with Tower 2, and our collective nightmare had begun. Possibly the most surreal moment of the day was having a conversation with her doctor about how her procedure went-he updated us on her, we updated him on the horrors of the day, and then, he had to go back and confer with the other MDs about how they were going to share the news of the day with the patients in the Unit. Not sure how they did it, but I can only imagine the care with which her doctor, and thousands of other cardiologists across the country, had to have THAT conversation with their patients. May God continue to comfort those who mourn this national tragedy on a very personal level.
ReplyDelete