story1713.xml
Title
story1713.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-09-04
911DA Story: Story
September,11th started out as a very ordinary day for our family. My husband and I had just sent our kids out the door to school and I stepped in the shower to get ready for work. The phone rang and it was my niece asking if we had heard what had happened in New York. I called up to my husband and told him to turn on the TV, wrapped myself in a towel, then went up to see what was going on. I spent the next three hours wrapped in that towel unable to move away from the television. When the first tower collapsed I remember covering my mouth with my hand and looking at my husband to see if what I thought I just saw really happened. I will never forget the look of horror in my husbands eyes or the tears running down his face. He is a fireman and knew the tragety of what had just occured before I could even comprehend what I had seen. The last thing I remember distinctly from that day was hanging our flag on the front of the house.It stayed there for the next six months.
In the days and weeks that followed I felt like I was walking around numb and surrounded by a fog that wouldn't lift. I couldn't stop watching TV hoping that they would find an area where people were just waiting for the rescuers to help them out. My husband knew what was going on at ground zero as it was now called. He heard from some of the fireman on our department that had delivered a new firetruck to help replace what had been lost. They worked at ground zero while they were there and came home devestated by what they saw.
On October 25th my husband and I drove to New York to attend some of the funerals of firemen that had died on September 11th. We went to six funerals in two days. Most of the caskets were empty with only a framed picture on top. At some, there was no casket, just a table with mementos and pictures. We met the wives and children, mothers and fathers, friends and relatives and brother firefighters that filled the funeral homes to overflowing. On Staten Island we stopped at a corner bar between funerals and the people in the bar bought us our dinner and took turns sitting with us, they told us their stories and who they knew that had died that day, they all knew someone. Along with the sadness that prevailed for those two days that we were in New York I will never forget the generosity of the people we met. We were thanked over and over again for being there, by the families, by the other firemen, by bus drivers, taxi drivers, policemen and by perfect strangers on the street. Anyone that saw my husband's dress uniform and noticed that he was from out of town took it upon themselves to let us know how much they appreciated our being there. In a way it helped us to feel as though we had done something to honor the men and women that died by being there to show our support to their families and their city. What beautiful strength in the face of tragety the people of New York have. I will never forget them. They helped to heal me and I can only hope that I may have helped them too.
In the days and weeks that followed I felt like I was walking around numb and surrounded by a fog that wouldn't lift. I couldn't stop watching TV hoping that they would find an area where people were just waiting for the rescuers to help them out. My husband knew what was going on at ground zero as it was now called. He heard from some of the fireman on our department that had delivered a new firetruck to help replace what had been lost. They worked at ground zero while they were there and came home devestated by what they saw.
On October 25th my husband and I drove to New York to attend some of the funerals of firemen that had died on September 11th. We went to six funerals in two days. Most of the caskets were empty with only a framed picture on top. At some, there was no casket, just a table with mementos and pictures. We met the wives and children, mothers and fathers, friends and relatives and brother firefighters that filled the funeral homes to overflowing. On Staten Island we stopped at a corner bar between funerals and the people in the bar bought us our dinner and took turns sitting with us, they told us their stories and who they knew that had died that day, they all knew someone. Along with the sadness that prevailed for those two days that we were in New York I will never forget the generosity of the people we met. We were thanked over and over again for being there, by the families, by the other firemen, by bus drivers, taxi drivers, policemen and by perfect strangers on the street. Anyone that saw my husband's dress uniform and noticed that he was from out of town took it upon themselves to let us know how much they appreciated our being there. In a way it helped us to feel as though we had done something to honor the men and women that died by being there to show our support to their families and their city. What beautiful strength in the face of tragety the people of New York have. I will never forget them. They helped to heal me and I can only hope that I may have helped them too.
Collection
Citation
“story1713.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 16, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/13677.