story1623.xml

story1623.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-31

I woke up in the morning to go to work as a high school science teacher. The school year had just begun; it was only our second week. I had just spent the weekend having a memorial service for my grandfather, who passed away at the end of July, so I was already feeling pretty emotionally drained. I drove my brother to the airport on Sunday morning, one of the last mornings of "normal" air travel we would ever experience. I turned on the television after I got out of the shower, just as I usually did, at around six o'clock in the morning on the west coast. When I did, it wasn't too long until the anchor said, "We are receiving reports that one of the towers of the World Trade Center is on fire." They showed the pictures. It didn't register. I didn't understand what I was seeing. At first, they thought a twin-engine Cessna had crashed into the building, which I knew could easily have happened accidentally. But at the same time, they were talking about commercial flights being missing. No one knew what was going on, so I continued getting ready while listening as I moved around my apartment. I saw the explosion as the second plane hit. I thought the first tower had exploded, or that a bomb had gone off. I will never forget the moment when they slowed down that video and showed the plane flying into the side of the building. Someone is flying planes into buildings ON PURPOSE . . . this is no accident. It was inconceivable. I had to go work, though, I had classes to teach, though I wanted to keep watching to find out what was going on. It was right before I left the apartment that another plane crashed into the Pentagon. I watched the skies all the way to work. I had visions while driving through downtown Long Beach of planes falling out of the sky and crashing into the buildings. The televisions were on in the office at school, showing the billowing smoke covering Manhattan. It still felt so unreal. Many of the teachers kept their televisions on in their rooms all day, but I felt like it was necessary to try to keep functioning normally, for my sake and for the kids. There were rumors flying around the staff room about planes crashing all over the country, and someone said something about the towers collapsing. I wasn't going to believe it until I could go home and watch the news for myself, to sort out truth from rumor. We got a memo during 4th period to read to the students, letting them know that we were not sending them home but that extracurricular activities were cancelled for the rest of the week. All I wanted to do was get to the end of the day so I could leave, call my family, and watch the news. I wanted to make sure that my family and friends were safe, that no one I knew was on a plane or in one of those buildings. I was blessed that everyone I knew was fine, but so many other people were not, as I discovered when I sank into the armchair in my living room and turned on the television. It was everywhere, on every channel. It was then that I finally saw video of the towers collapsing with my own eyes, and that was when I finally lost it and started sobbing. The magnitude of the day's events was finally coming home to me, and another image was forever burned into my brain. I went to the grocery store and cried on the way home while I listened to our senators and representatives sing "God Bless America" on the steps of the capital. Everyone I saw was in a daze, shell-shocked, myself included. When I got home again, more bad news, and more tears- the casualty estimates were so high. I got down on my knees and prayed that night that survivors could be found in the buildings, that the missing could be accounted for. In the days to come, I went through the motions at work, but at home I cried all the time. The faces, the stories, each one tore into my heart so that I knew I would never be the same. I still know.