#day253

I remember where I was sitting.  What my desk look liked.  What was on my computer screen.  What I was wearing.  What my radio looked like.  What station was playing.  I hadn’t been at work long.  I had a job working in finance in Knoxville, TN at the time.  I was half paying attention to the radio when the DJ was almost making a joke about what reports they were getting in saying they thought a helicopter had hit the World Trade Center.  I say he was kind of making a joke of the situation because it was almost too unreal to be true.  He kept saying “this can’t be right, this can’t be right”.  Not a minute later, everything changed.  They confirmed a plane had in fact hit the tower.  

We had a room, which was sort of a lounge area because we were in an old house, but it had a tv.  I ran back there to ask my boss if we could turn it on and find out what was happening.  When I got there, he already had it on and was watching.  I remember Katie Couric was anchoring the show and my boss and I were looking at the flames and smoke behind her as she talked, and watched another plane hit the tower.  We both looked at each other.  He asked me, “was that a replay of the first plane hitting”?  I shook my head about to say that I didn’t think so, when the fear and dread appeared on the news anchors faces.  It was then we realized a second plane had hit.  My boss turned the tv off, turned to me and said get your stuff, get in your car, and get home to your family.  Don’t stop anywhere.  Go straight home.  

At the time I had a 2 and 4 year old at home.  I was in my 20′s and pretty naive still.  I could not comprehend the severity of the situation until later than night when my husband and I were watching the news after the kids had went to bed.

The hardest part for me was trying to comprehend that we were going to have to explain this to our kids, who at those ages would not be able to understand.  At one point I remember crying and my son (who was 2) came over and wiped my eyes.  It was so sweet and innocent.  Of course, neither of my kids remember it actually happening, but they do remember us talking about it as they grew up.  

As time went on, some friends of mine shared that they had lost some of their family members who had been there on vacation.  It really hit home at that point.  

Tennessee donated many things to NYC at the time of the tragedy (as did many other states). One of the donations was a new fire truck.   We watched as the fire truck left the city and made its way up north.

In October of 2016, right after the 15th anniversary, my husband and I went to NYC for a belated honeymoon (really really belated).  The day we visited the 9/11 memorial, I took these pictures.  Although there were hundreds of people around us, it was as if we were alone.  So quiet.  So serene.  

Walking through the memorial will be something I will also never forget.  I even located the names of my friend’s family in various places while we were there.

Flash forward (or actually rewind) to 2013 (although I didn’t find out about it until 2017), we moved to a city just outside of Nashville.  As it turns out, we have a piece of the World Trade Center right here in Middle Tennessee.   This is a 3,000-pound steel I-beam from the World Trade Center I.

No matter how far away we were, we were all still somehow affected by this tragedy.

Today a lady I work with told me her story.  It gave me goosebumps so I have to share. She had brain cancer and had went into surgery about an hour before the first plane hit.  The doctor was told that all surgeries across the US were to be canceled unless they were already in progress or it was a life threatening emergency.  The doctor continued with her surgery.  For 4 days she did not know what had happened.  She wasn’t mentally aware enough to even be told the news.  She wouldn’t have been able to understand it.  When she finally was able to understand the situation, she spent a week in front of the tv watching the reports.  She’s 70 years old now, and she feels as though her life was spared in a way.  As it turns out, the year before her family had a trip planned to NYC for that time, but cancelled it as soon as she learned of her cancer diagnosis.  She asks herself “what if” every day.  What if?

The other crazy part about this story involves her boss at the time (and the owner of the company I work for today).  He was scheduled to fly out that day.  In fact, he was already at the airport.  This was when they had pink printed boarding passes.  None of that really matters until you throw in that his flight number was this lady’s birth year (and the fact that it was pink may have been symbolic for her cancer). 

He kept the boarding pass.  It’s in his office.  She showed it to me today.