story10444.xml

story10444.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-02-18

I remember how beautiful the day was. I can remember how ordinary the news was; they were talking about whether Michael Jordan would return to basketball. But I also remember as I was getting ready for work, that I had a strange thought pass through my mind, like my inner voice was trying to get my attention..."This is going to be a bad day..." it said. I instantly thought, "why did I think that?"

When I arrived at work I changed my voicemail greeting, "Today is Tuesday, September 11, and I will be in the office all day..." About five minutes later my mother called to tell me that a plane had crashed into the World Trace Center. I immediatley assumed it was an accident. I sarcastically said, "Oh that's real good, how did that happen?" I just didn't quite grasp the severity until I walked over to a co-worker several minutes later who told me a second plane had hit the other tower. I still didn't 'get it,' until she said, "It was quit intentional."

By now they had a television playing in one of the conference rooms. I walked in to watch the coverage just at the time they were switching to Washington to show the smoke billowing from the Pentagon. I didn't actually see the towers fall, which is probably a good thing, I don't think I could have handled that, seeing hundreds of Americans die on t.v. I kept pacing the halls, walking in and out of the room showing the live coverage.

We kept hearing rumors that were were planes headed for O'Hare Airport or the Sears Tower...anything seemed possible at that time. Another rumor said the State Department had been hit. When the news came across that all US plans were accounted for I remember feeling a sense of relief.

I've always been proud to be an American, ever since I was a small child and I felt a sence of greif and anger, but I didn't know who to be angery with. I remember I started to cry and my father told me to be strong, to "be an American."

One of our buidling's facility men told me his daughter was to be at the World Trade Center that morning and he had not heard from her. I thanked God when he told me she finially was able to get word that she was safe. She told him how she had watched two people holding hands as they jumped from the towers.

That night I was too afraid to turn the T.V. off, I was afraid of what might happen next.

The next morning, I knew that the America I used to know would be gone forever and that we had all awakened to a different world.

I didn't actually brake down and cry until the evening of September 12. I would spend the next several weeks crying; every day that went by I could get a deeper sense of how terrible this was and how my country was in pain.

I drew strength from everyone in our American family. I tried to find something good out of all the pain. And the only bright spot I could see was that the American spirit was still alive. I saw so much goodness in people and it gave me hope that we can outlast the darkness.

I only fear now that we will become complacent once again. That we are too quick to forget how we felt that day, that we too easily retreat back into our own lives.

September 11, 2001 was my generation's Pear Harbor or Kennedy Assassination. I will never forget anything about that day or that time and how I felt. I pray to God for peace.

Amanda