story5058.xml

story5058.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

My day started out like all the other's who have since fallen. I was at work, listening to Howard Stern on my headphones when my mother called to tell me about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. This has happened before so I really didn't pay too much attention to it. Then alittle later, my mother called again, nearly crying. She told me a second plane had hit the second tower right while she was watching news coverage of the first plane! Then Howard broke in with his coverage of the events which I loyally listened to in between trying to console my friend, who's mother was down in Manhattan. (Thankfully, she was a few blocks away at the time and was home safely a few days later.) It was a very scary and surreal feeling. Everyone in the office was calling loved ones, watching a small TV someone happened to have, and generally trying to make sense of a senseless event. I called my parents and asked them to give my 2 year old twin girls a kiss from mommy and that I loved them all just in case anything more happened. The news coverage in the following days was almost too much to bear and feeling the lose of so many people, hopes, dreams was devastating. Fortunatly, I did not lose anyone in my family or circle of friends. But as Verizon is such a big company, I did hear horror stories of body parts falling on people and fire all around. I collected any paper work I could on the events for my daughters as I'm sure this will be taught in History some day. The feeling of not knowing what's ahead for us all is agonizing but I believe in America and all we stand for. I'm sure we'll prevail in whatever measures are taken. I have flown since the attacks, my first time and in October 2001. I overcame my fear of flying so that that freedom couldn't be taken away from me by myself or anyone else. I flew my flag on Sept 11 2002 and wore red, white, and blue in remembrance. I've brought essentials to the volunteers who were bringing down contributions to the cleanup site after the attacks. Most of all, I've tried not to make too rash judgements of other people and events and told my loved ones I love them every day since, because you never know what's going to happen. I'm sure that's the way the heros and victims of 9/11 felt on that day as they went to work only to have it all ripped out from under them in the blink of an eye. The blink of America's eye.