story6648.xml

story6648.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-12

My first day back from maternity leave was September 11, 2002. I was flying to Albany, NY for the first time. While on maternity leave my employer restructured and changed my job responsibilities, now I would have to leave my 8 week daughter for 3 days every week if I wanted to keep my job. I had to have my job so I complied. September 11th was the first day leaving my 8 week old daughter overnight. I flew from Indianapolis to Detroit. Upon landing in Detroit I deboarded and was walking to my connecting gate when I noticed a very large cluster of people watching a television outside a pub, they were very quiet. Just as I looked up at the television screen the second plane hit the tower. Suddenly, someone shouted out, "that is not a private plane, that was a commercial airliner!" The airport terminal was then in complete chaos. Completely mortified I realized this was no accident and ran to get a rental car. Getting home to my family was the only thought on my mind at the time. I thought the U.S. was being attacked and didn't know how far it would reach. Luckily our corporate travel agent was able to get me a car. Upon arriving at the rental car site I was told every airport across the country had been closed and I was fortunate to have gotten the rental car because they now had none left. Due to the shortage of rental cars I decided to wait a few minutes to see if there were other people going to Indianapolis. There was one lady, but she refused to ride with a stranger, I asked nicely if she would prefer to drive and she declined. Another man asked if I could drive him to NY, but I didn't. The entire way back to Indianapolis I listened to the radio and prayed for all of the victims and all the citizens of the United States. The tragedy truly put my problems into perspective.