story1294.xml

story1294.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-20

Our family are transplanted New Yorkers. My wife and I received a call when the first plane hit. We were out having breakfast and decided to return home to watch the news. Our initial reaction was muted as we assumed it was a tragic accident. With our eyes glued to the television,that reaction turned to horror as we saw the second plane hit! The realization that our city was under attack sickened us. The news from the Pentagon and Pennsylvania prompted us to call our children in school. Even though their phones were not permitted to be on, we reached our daughter. The school had taken the student body to an assembly to calm them down. My daughter relayed that our son wanted her to call us and come get him. As we headed out to their school,I tried to maintain my composure,hoping to assure them that we were ok. Looking back,I can still feel that sickening feeling in my body that it might be the last time we would be together. As we arrived at school, the place was frenetic. Since South Florida has a large population of transplanted N.Y.'ers,parents were parking their cars in the roads and running to the school to find their kids. We met our daughter in the parking lot and set off to find my son. After what seemed an eternity, he appears and has this expression on his face I will never forget! I tell him that our family up north is fine but with tears in his eyes he asks about two very close friends. Both worked in Manhattan,one down on Wall Street. He assumed that they we in The Towers as their former employers were located there. As I assured him that they were fine, he slumped into my arms as the relief overwhelmed him. The remainder of that day, we stayed together,watching as the events unfolded,realizing that the safe little world we lived in had been irrevocably changed!