Never Forget

Six years ago today, the sun was shining.  Today, it rained and it seems appropriate somehow.  Six years ago today, I was unemployed as I had been downsized from my job of 12 years in corporate America hell and the Brit and I were still living in our very cool, historical apartment.  I was still asleep, when the phone rang.

It was the Brit, telling me to turn on the television as one of the guys at work had heard something about a plane accident involving the World Trade Center.  I stumbled from the bed and switched on the tv in the bedroom and images of the north tower of the Trade Center flood the screen.  My eyes, still bleary from sleep, try to take it all in as I stammer to the Brit what it is I am seeing.  Smoke, more than anything.  I ask him again what happened and he tells me it has something to do with a plane. 

Why on earth was a plane flying so low, I wondered and probably even voiced aloud to him.  I think my mind came to the conclusion that the unfortunate pilot must have lost control of the aircraft or something went wrong.  I turned up the volume so the Brit could hear it as well.  The media just kept repeating what I had already known; a plane had hit the tower.

Minutes later, I was certain my eyes were deceiving me film footage showed another plane flying into the south tower. 

"Oh my God!"

The Brit asked what it was and I stammered out that another plane had hit the second tower.  For the first time in the ten or so minutes I had been watching, a coldness settled on my heart and seemed to flow through my body.  Two planes was no accident. 

I can't remember now if I stayed on the phone with the Brit or if we kept calling each other as new information rolled in.  The Pentagon was hit as well.  We were under attack and I was terrified, along with everyone else in America.  I know I was on the phone with him when the first tower collapsed.  I can almost remember my words, as my mind continued to reel with shock.

"The tower just folded in on itself!"

"What do you mean?"

"That's what it looked it...it just collapsed on itself!"

A forth plane in Pennsylvania and the country is in a panic.  But even in the early moments, heroes began to emerge.  That plane was not supposed to go down in a field.  Something had gone wrong with the plan of whoever was behind this.

The morning stretched on.  I got on the computer, desperately trying to make contact with friends.  My mind was telling me that it was possible that the end of the world had come, or that maybe there had been more attacks in more places we didn't know about yet.  I was desperate to make contact with friends who lived far away.  I chatted with Jo, who lived in NY, relief filling me to find out she was all right, but every bit as in shock as I was.  My phone kept ringing; friends, the Brit, family. 

I was afraid to be alone any longer.  I was just plain afraid.  Groceries were on my agenda for the day, so I set out for the store.  Now, I think about how odd that was...how in the face of such a disaster that maybe I was searching for something that felt normal.  That and the fact that I wanted to be around other people.

Walmart was as deserted as I have ever seen it and even there, the televisions continued to broadcast coverage.  I felt numb.  On the way home, the radio station played "God Bless the USA" and I finally cried.

Those were my memories of that day six years ago.  In the days that followed, I couldn't sleep once the Brit left for work and he used to leave for work very early in the morning, like 5:30 or 6:00.  I would wake up in the middle of the night, certain that I was hearing planes flying overhead, certain that any minute, one of them would crash into our house.  I feared the Brit's office building might be a target...my fears were endless.

I don't ever want to forget that day and I NEVER want to become blase about it.  It was the worst thing to ever happen in my lifetime and it forever changed who I was.  It changed my security.

I never want to forget and neither should you.