story249.xml
Title
story249.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-03-14
911DA Story: Story
I guess the most unnerving fact about that day was the pure ordinariness of it's start. I had taken my little girl to school and had several errands to run before I was to meet friends for lunch that day. As I drove to the first store, I heard the report on the radio of a plane hitting the Twin Towers in New York. No one thought terrorism then, just a bad accident. As I shopped that morning I heard people talking to each other about what had happened and the radio blaring reports from the pharmacy section of the store. I suddenly needed to go home. Something was going on...much bigger than a small plane crash.
My answering machine was blinking...My husband.."Honey, turn on CNN", my daughter away at college.."Mom, where are you..is everyone OK"...our former exchange student calling from Sweden.."I need to know if everyone is safe".
CNN showed me the horror. In addition to New York, the Pentagon had been hit and there were other planes missing, presumed headed toward Washington. I contemplated taking the kids out of school, but then thought that they were probably safer where they were.
My phone rang and it was my friend, Dawn. She told me that my friend Karyn's husband had been on the flight that had hit the Pentagon. Karyn and I had been friends for about 8 years. Our daughters were the same age and good buddies. I went straight to her house. Several of our mutual friends had already started gathering. Karyn was in shock, still hoping that the reports were somehow not true...that maybe somehow it hadn't been the plane Lenny had been on. When the terrible reality began to sink in, she hoped for his survival...not comprehending the resulting fireball from a plane fully loaded with jet fuel. She worried about how would she tell his children...what could she say to her two little girls, just five and eight.
There have been many stories of heroism associated with 9/11. I saw a different kind of heroism that day as friends and family gathered around a grieving young widow and supported her through the darkest of days...quietly doing the things that needed doing..making phone calls, bringing food, watching children, being there to listen. I know it was a scene that was played out across America many more times..over 3,000 more times as we began to know the death toll that awful day would bring.
The hardest time for me that evening was finally going back to my own family and having to tell my children that Lenny Taylor had been on Flight 77. This was a man who played with his own children and included my 8 year old as one of his own. My teenagers babysit for his kids. It still affects them today.
They say 9/11 changed everything. I know it changed me. I hope I never forget the need I felt that night to cling to my family and tell them I love them. I always have a twinge now when my husband flies on business...always aware of how quickly life can change in the blink of an eye. Oh..and I've never been prouder to be an American.
My answering machine was blinking...My husband.."Honey, turn on CNN", my daughter away at college.."Mom, where are you..is everyone OK"...our former exchange student calling from Sweden.."I need to know if everyone is safe".
CNN showed me the horror. In addition to New York, the Pentagon had been hit and there were other planes missing, presumed headed toward Washington. I contemplated taking the kids out of school, but then thought that they were probably safer where they were.
My phone rang and it was my friend, Dawn. She told me that my friend Karyn's husband had been on the flight that had hit the Pentagon. Karyn and I had been friends for about 8 years. Our daughters were the same age and good buddies. I went straight to her house. Several of our mutual friends had already started gathering. Karyn was in shock, still hoping that the reports were somehow not true...that maybe somehow it hadn't been the plane Lenny had been on. When the terrible reality began to sink in, she hoped for his survival...not comprehending the resulting fireball from a plane fully loaded with jet fuel. She worried about how would she tell his children...what could she say to her two little girls, just five and eight.
There have been many stories of heroism associated with 9/11. I saw a different kind of heroism that day as friends and family gathered around a grieving young widow and supported her through the darkest of days...quietly doing the things that needed doing..making phone calls, bringing food, watching children, being there to listen. I know it was a scene that was played out across America many more times..over 3,000 more times as we began to know the death toll that awful day would bring.
The hardest time for me that evening was finally going back to my own family and having to tell my children that Lenny Taylor had been on Flight 77. This was a man who played with his own children and included my 8 year old as one of his own. My teenagers babysit for his kids. It still affects them today.
They say 9/11 changed everything. I know it changed me. I hope I never forget the need I felt that night to cling to my family and tell them I love them. I always have a twinge now when my husband flies on business...always aware of how quickly life can change in the blink of an eye. Oh..and I've never been prouder to be an American.
Collection
Citation
“story249.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 18, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/14259.