Where were you when the world stopped turning that September day?
Did you stand there in shock at the sight of that black smoke
Risin' against that blue sky?
Did you shout out in anger, in fear for your neighbor
Or did you just sit down and cry?
~Alan Jackson "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)"
I can recall every detail of that day, ten years ago.
I remember looking in the mirror, finishing getting ready for class, when the phone rang. I remember how bright and beautiful and warm the day was and the feel of the breeze coming in through my open window. I remember walking out to the living room and telling my dad to turn on the tv because something was going on down in the city. I remember the feel of my hairbrush in my hand as I stared, unbelieving, at the tv screen displaying the North Tower of the World Trade Center in flames.
The details of that day are emblazoned in my memory. As they are in the memory of everyone who witnessed the horrors of that day.
I saw every moment of that day unfold on the tv, the actual events occurring just hours from my home in upstate New York.
The image of the burning towers is still there for me, if I just close my eyes and picture it.
I watched as the trapped people lept out of the towers to escape being burned. The horror of witnessing the deaths of thousands via television will never leave me. It haunted my dreams for weeks afterwards. I couldn't stop imagining the awful decision forced upon these innocent men and women: burn or jump. It's incredibly cruel that this choice was forced upon them. I still feel a deep sense of sickness at the thought.
I sat in my history class among students whose families and friends worked in those buildings. We had no class, just a tv the professor wheeled in without saying a word. The silence was deafening. No one spoke. Not a single word. Many had come to class having no idea what had happened. We watched the coverage switch to the Pentagon attack, and I felt a wave of incredulity overwhelm me. It was like something out of a movie. It seemed impossible that any of this could be real, that it could be happening.
That it could happen here, in America.
I shook with disbelief when they said a plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. The reporters were confused; no one seemed to know at the time exactly what had happened. I recall that I prayed that it would just be an accident, all the while feeling sure it was not. I think we all knew immediately that is wasn't an accident.
Leaving the silent class behind, I went to my on-campus job, not to work, but to be with friends. I sat with my coworkers and watched the South Tower crumple like a stack of cards. One of my co-workers was trying desperately to get in touch with her brother, who worked in one of the Towers.
I remember thinking of all the firefighters who had been racing into the Tower. I remember shaking and feeling tears finally release from my burning eyes. I had grown up hearing my dad tell stories to me of when he was a volunteer firefighter during college... a college just outside the city. These had been fathers, too. And mothers. And sons and daughters. Racing in to save those who had been lost since the moment the planes hit and cut them off from any possible hope of rescue.
By the time the North Tower collapsed, I felt nothing by numbness. The images of the city looked like a warzone. The loss of life was incomprehensible.
All day long, I watched. I think, through it all, I was struggling to process the events. To try to understand why it was happening. And to bear witness to it all. In a way, I felt as though I had to watch; that those people could somehow feel my prayers, our prayers, the prayers of an entire nation, the entire world, as long as we all stayed connected by watching. They couldn't just turn off the tv and walk away from the horror they were living; I felt that I shouldn't, either.
I watched until the reporting became repetitive, and my heart just couldn't take anymore. And then, just as the song says, I turned on I Love Lucy reruns and watched until the wee hours of the morning.
I went to bed thinking of those whose lives had been forever changed by that day's terrible events. Mothers who couldn't sleep because they had lost a son or daughter; a husband, numb with pain over the loss of his wife; a little girl, still waiting for her daddy to come home to her.
And tonight, it touches me again. I sit, thinking of the thousands of lives gone in the space of hours. Each one was loved by someone else; each has been missed for ten long years.
It is so overwhelming to think of the hundreds, the thousands. The workers in the Towers. The travelers on the planes. The men and women in the Pentagon. They all mattered. Each one was precious and important.
I do not know all their names. But I do know one. Christine Hanson, the youngest victim. In the days afterward, I heard about her and how she died with her parents on the plane that crashed into the South Tower. Their story broke my heart; a young family, lost together.
Christine was two years old.
The same age as Paityn.
She was on her way to visit family and then go see Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. Which is where we will be going in just a couple weeks.
She was a little girl loved by her parents, grandparents, and friends. A little girl who loved the same things my daughter does. A little girl who will never be any older than my daughter is now because hatred, cruelty and depravity lived in evil men's hearts.
I think of her again tonight. I haven't thought of her since I heard about her, in the days after the attack. But I think of her now, and I think of her mother and father. They were Dan and Paityn and me ten years ago...
I mourn the death of every single life lost on that day. They were all someone's daughter or son. But... my heart wants to give voice to just one name, to hold onto it today, to keep it close in my heart as sign that
we will not forget you. We have not yet, and we will not. I will not. I will remember that day, remember your innocence, remember your life. Christine, I remember you.
Time is passing.
Yet, for the United States of America,
there will be no forgetting September the 11th.
We will remember every rescuer who died in honor.
We will remember every family that lives in grief.
We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls,
the funerals of the children.
~ President George W. Bush, November 11, 2001
Sharing this post at Sunshine Praises and Totally Temberton 9-11 Always Remember, Never Forget Bloghop. If you have a chance, please go and read some other blog entries about this day.
