The hours before I actually found out were very trying. Before I dropped the kids off at school, we kept having to run into the house because we forgot things. I was on the highway when I realized that I'd forgotten my pocketbook. I can vividly remember screaming out loud, as I tried to decide whether or not I needed to turn around, "what the hell is going on."
What I know now, but didn't know then, was that I was tuned into the universe, and the energy that was being utilized by those many hundreds of thousands of people who were all praying that what would eventually happen, would happen.
When I got to Manchester and walked into the office, a little later than usual, two of my co-workers were standing in the hallway talking. They looked at me and asked me whether or not I'd heard about the plane that had hit one of the twin towers. I will admit, I didn't know what a twin tower was, and I was completely clueless as I listened to books on tape during my commute. I was also completely preoccupied with the fact that I was already behind on what would be a normal, busy day. I just shrugged and said no, I hadn't heard, and went to my desk.
I was reading emails when I could hear a hullaballoo down the hall, and I went to investigate. "Can you believe it?" they asked me, and I said I didn't know what they were talking about. "The plane," someone cried.
Oh yeah, I said, so some pilot didn't realize it and hit a tall building, right?
They all stared at me. "No, it was a big plane, a passenger plane."
Oh. Okay. Well that sucks, but what was the big deal? I was curious as I watched everyone get all freaked out, and for the life of me I couldn't understand it. Didn't planes crash? I mean, yes, it's pretty awful but...
"It wasn't one plane, Lisa, it was two planes. It wasn't an accident."
I can remember that whooshing feeling, that I was standing there and watching everyone in sort of a trance as I tried to process it.
"A plane just hit the Pentagon," another co-worker said, and I felt the tingling chills go through me before panic hit me like a ton of bricks. My kids! What the hell was going on?
Another co-worker came running through the doors, a look of sheer panic on her face, and said she'd just heard from her sister. Her husband was a New York firefighter and he'd just called to tell her that it was armageddon down there. People were jumping.
What the hell was going on?
I ran into the conference room and turned on the TV. Peter Jennings was there, ashen and shaky, talking about the twin towers. There was a live video feed and everyone piled into the small room. We were all silent as the first tower collapsed.
Did that just really happen?
You could see the people jumping as they showed the raw video they had taped earlier. They would remove that later; but early that morning it was all there for the world to witness.
I didn't know what to do. Was Manchester, NH under attack too? I don't remember when I specifically learned about the other hijacked plane, but I do remember feeling as though all safety -- my own version of my safe existence in small town, USA, was completely obliterated.
I started to make phone calls. My husband, mother, sister, brother ... there was an innate need to make sure that everyone was safe. Did I know anyone who worked or lived in New York? Later I would find out, that indeed I did. That this was a tragedy that had far reaching tentacles, even snatching a woman who lived up the road from me. From my small town of under 1,000 people.
The rest of that day is a blur. Our country was now instantly at war, it was all too much to take. Our enemy was terror. And we'd met him intimately for the first time.
3 comments:
I was pregnant with Jake and living in Lynchburg, VA. Matt called me, frantic, from work, and told me to turn on the TV. A few seconds later the tower fell and I told him 'it's gone'. He said 'no way, there's no way that could happen' and I said that I wasn't seeing the outline of a building coming through all the smoke anymore. That's when I told him I wanted him to come home immediately.
I used to work in the South Tower. I had friends who still worked there. I have friends all over the city and I started trying to contact them. Joe St Cyr and I were IM'ing. He was at his office at the Russian Tea room and basically holed up there with all the other employees. They had no cell reception, no phone service and were basically. For the next several hours, I IM'd with Joe, keeping him and his coworkers up to date on what was happening. I was their only link to the outside world.
My husband used to work across the street from the Pentagon when he was still in the Army. We'd moved a year earlier. Many people didn't know we'd moved and were freaking out because that entrance at the Pentagon was where Matt went every day after he arrived at his office. He'd typically get to the Pentagon a little after 9. He would have died that day had we not decided that we both should get out of the military if we wanted kids because there was no doubt we'd get deployed during the next crisis. We didn't want to orphan our kids. So we both got out of the Army in 2000.
Everyone I used to work with in the South Tower got out, thankfully. They were on a low floor. Joe lost friends at Windows on the World. There was a group of 6 men from my college who were all working at Cantor Fitzgerald.... they were all gone. One of them had procured jobs for the rest.
Matt's mother called sobbing and freaking out, completely forgetting that we'd moved .. she'd even BEEN to our new house ... but the emotion overcame her and all she could do was scream into the phone 'is Matt okay'. It took me almost an hour to calm her down. And I just cried. For days. I'm emotional when pregnant anyway .... and afterwards too.
My oldest was just 2 months old when Oklahoma City happened and I freaked out over that big time. I still can't see that photo of the fireman carrying that little girl with the yellow socks out of the building.
Wow, you had connections all over the map ... crazy.
I remember Oklahoma City as being pretty traumatic, with a toddler in daycare at the time. That time I went right there and picked her up (it was down the road from my office.) I didn't think there was going to be a run on daycare bombings, but it was just too much.
Also, Hallie was the exact same age as the little girl who fell into the well -- Baby Jessica. I just couldn't visualize how a baby could fall down such a small opening. Made it seem as though no child could ever be safe.
And on that day I remember thinking that the rest of the world had arrived where I had been for a very long time...knowing that I could not keep my kids safe no matter what.
I remember sitting on the 18th floor of Mass General the day after...looking out at the city that was so quiet...no planes in the air. We used to watch them regularly from the 18th floor "looking room" as we called it. It was eerie. It was surreal. I could see vigils from my nesting point in the sky where people gathered with candles. There was no other reason I would have been in any city except that she needed her chemotherapy.
Sadly enough, it was as though everyone else had arrived to a place of horror and this event only added to mine.
Seeing the images being sent around today makes me cry. What a sad, sad day.
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