story6126.xml

story6126.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-12

On September 11, 2001, I dropped off my children at their childcare center and was driving to my college campus when I started to hear about what was going in New York and Washington D.C. on the radio. First, I was listening to one of the local morning shows who reported that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. At first, I thought, "How horrible. Something must have been wrong with the plane or the pilot that he was not able to avoid crashing into such a tall building." I switched to NPR to get more information. Pretty soon they were transmitting a telephone call from someone at the Pentagon. It was on fire and he didn't know why. Also, a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. That's when I began to suspect something was happening. That it wasn't pilot error or mechanical difficulties that caused the crash. I arrived at school and people were talking about it. Classes continued and at the beginning of each class, we found out more about what was going on. We watched some of the news coverage on TV. I drove home with this eery sense of not knowing what to think about my life, the country, and the world. I talked to my sister in Oregon on the phone on my way home. She told me about the people who had jumped out of windows. When I got home my brother-in-law, who was visiting from Mexico and had been watching TV all day, was shocked and horrified and told me how sorry he felt for me, for my country. A friend of mine from Austria sent me an e-mail telling me how sorry she was for us, also, and that we were in her prayers. I was glued to the TV and the stories being told for about a week. After that, I had to stop watching. Yesterday, the anniversary of Sept. 11, I decided not to watch anything on TV. I couldn't handle it. I went to mass early in the morning to remember and pray for what happened and the people who had lost their lives, were injured, and had lost loved ones. The church bells rang at the different times that the planes hit in New York City, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania. I wept at the first bell. It tears me up to think about the fear and pain that those people must have gone through before and during their deaths. I cry for them, for my chidren who are growing up during a time of war, for my country that is devistated in so many different ways. Still our lives are going on. My family and I went to Mexico on vacation this summer; my husband started a new business; we bought our first house; the fall semester at my college has started; and my four-year old daughter started preschool Sept. 10. I pray that we will all get through this with a better sense of who we are, what we stand for, and how we should lead our lives.