lc_story221.xml

lc_story221.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-01-07

A group of us had our regular breakfast meeting that morning at Denny's. Usually, we were gone for about two hours. But on that morning, we finished rather early and were headed back to the office at about 8:55. We walked back into the office to find a couple of colleagues watching tv. It was just after the first plane had hit. I stood in an office door for the next hour, and we all watched as the planes hit the second tower, the Pentagon, and crashed in Pennsylvania. Most of my colleagues eventually drifted back to work at their desks, but I couldn't stop going back to the television. I watched as each tower collapsed, and as the smoke enveloped the city.

I truly couldn't stop watching CNN for the next three days. I couldn't focus at work. I cried every time I saw an American flag. I couldn't take time out to enjoy anything--laughing made me feel guilty, working out made me feel so trivial and disrespectful. I actually took a day off of work to force myself to remember how to do something else besides watch and listen to more about the devastation.

All the people searching for their loved ones, begging for television crews to show pictures, looking for space on a wall, light post, or bus stop shelter to put up a flyer. And the smoke that just wouldn't stop for days.

I visited Ground Zero in mid-October of 2001. I remember the NYPD and National Guard everywhere, roads and subways still blocked off, windows still caked with dust, St. Vincent's church still brimming with volunteers, a huge fence covered with flowers, pictures, letters from school children, posters of the missing everywhere, and the smell of lower Manhattan.

Personally, I can never feel the same again. Each time I board a plane, cross the George Washington Bridge, or see a fire truck--I'm not afraid, but I'm more vigilant, and I'm reminded of the emptiness I felt that day.

Our country has changed--perhaps too much, perhaps not enough.

I was so proud of our media, for about a month or so--then they stopped being human again. I was proud of a president for whom I didn't vote--until he and his policies declared war on our civil liberties and our relationship with the rest of the world.

But I was, and am, proud of our country's people. We have shown that we can care for each other and our collective well-being, and can (at least occasionally) put our differences aside for the common good.