story4144.xml

story4144.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I recall waking up around eight o'clock that morning to prepare for a morning class. I was a senior occupational therapy student at WVU. I rarely turned on the television while getting prepared for school and this morning was no different. I left the house and drove down the road and I remember thinking that my mother should just about be getting to the Pittsburgh airport for her flight to Atlanta that morning. I was quite surprised, however, when I passed her home and her car sat parked in the driveway. I turned my car back around and pulled into the driveway, thinking that something was wrong. As soon as I walked into the house, I saw my mother's stricken look. "Someone has flown into the World Trade Center!" It took a while to register and I was still in disbelief until I turned the corner and saw the television and the catastrophe that was now imposed on the United States. After confirming that my mother would not be flying anywhere that day and calling my police officer husband to relay the horrible news, I headed thirty miles down the highway to school. As I passed cars on the highway, I could see the panic looks of helplessness as we commuters sat riveted to radio news.
When I arrived at school, the class was immediantly sent back home to "be with our families on this tragic day". My father worked in the local hospital adjacent to the school, so I made my way to his office. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown was being put on alert if there were to be any survivors from the plane crash that occurred in Somerset Co, PA. No one knew that the heroes in that plane had paid the ultimate sacrifice for all of us. My always level-headed father was on edge. Everyone was, you could feel it in the air. Everyone wondered what was going to happen next. It was like the entire country was holding their breath and that feeling was extremely unsettling.
In the days that followed, rumors ran rampant. Many people said that the FBI center close to our home was targeted. Everywhere you turned, someone had a story and my eyes rarely stayed dry long. It was like a dull ache inside that never left and you didn't even have to know someone personally who had perished. The grief was the entire country's burden. I still have trouble watching those planes fly into the towers and I have yet to work up enough nerve to visit the site where Flight 93 saw it's last moments. Let us pray that our children will always know the story of the heroes that gave their life that day. God Bless America.