story536.xml

story536.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-05-07

People always talk about something in their life that completely changed. I never knew what it meant to have something so big and so eventful that it could make my whole life completely different. The morning of September 11th knew what those people meant. Fear. Pain. Shattered memories. Loss
September 11th was just another day. I woke up at about 7:30 and went to class like usual. When class was over around 11:30 my professor seemed uneasy. Before we all left she spoke with an uncertain tone, ? Our country is under attack.? Foreign words to me. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This is America, how could we be under attack? Is it even possible? The Twin Towers had fallen?
I left class and frantically called mom... ?Is Mr. Corea safe?? He is a long time family friend who works in New York and commutes from my hometown in New Jersey. ?He is fine,? she said, ?He is stuck in the City thought and wont be able to get out for a while.?
I hung up the phone and started to cry. i felt as though someone had stolen a part of my childhood. It was almost a tradition , my dad would take my brother and me on the short train ride into the City to visit all the different cites. This happened almost every year right after Christmas.
We would reach lower Manhattan and visit this man-made marvel. It was amazing, two towers soaring into the sky. I was always intrigued by the long elevator ride. When you reach the top and take those first few steps out onto the observation deck the view is awesome. In the crisp, winter atmosphere you could see forever. All of this beauty and wonder was destroyed in one short day. I couldn't stop thinking about how i would never feel the awesome power of these sights again. Only in my memories.
Later that terrible day i called my parents to make sure that everything was ok at home and to see if Mr. Corea was safe at home. My mom said that he was fine but...(in that instant thousands of things raced through my mind). But what? ?Molly, this afternoon Dad called and asked if Mr. Swenson had taken that job at the Twin Towers in April?? They weren't sure. After calling Mrs. Swenson my mom fount out that he was on the 102th floor with Cantor Fitzgerald when the plane hit.
As soon as she said this my heart fell through the floor, through the basement and into the depths of the earth. This couldn't be true. Mr. Swenson can?t be gone. I had grown up camping with this man. He was our neighbor, our friend, he couldnt be gone. He took me sleding in the winter and to the pool in the summer with his children. He was an EMT, on of the kindest people anyone could eve meet. It wasn?t possible for him to be gone.
I kept saying to my mom, ?People in thowe floors got out, maybe he did.? And all she could reply back to me was, ? Molly, you know Mr. Swenson, he would help other people before he even thought about himself.? An answer that I knew in my heart but couldnt accept. I never cried so much in my life.
For months I tried to be normal, but I couldnt seem to. It is hard when you dont even want to be you anymore because the hurt is to much. You try to find a reason in it all of it. Why? Why would anyone kill thousands of innocent people and destroy so many lives and memories.
What keeps you going is knowing that you have an angel watching over you and all of the lives thathe touched. Life continues, but you always have your memories.