nmah191.xml

nmah191.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-19

My girlfriend was up and watching the news as she was getting ready for work that morning. I was still sleeping when the first news reports came across that a plane had hit the tower. Being the news junky that I am, she knew I'd want to see the "accident" and woke me up with, "Honey? Honey? Wake up, a plane hit the World Trade Center it's on the news."

I instantly sat up and started watching the first reports. "How could a plane fly into the World Trade Center?" "Oh my god, look at all the smoke." I relayed my take on the pictures as she continued getting ready for work.

By this time (in retrospect it seems like forever, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes) I was sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed, glued to a 13-inch color television set to MSNBC with a hot cup of coffee hastily retrived from the kitchen.

And then, watching the live shot of a burning, smoldering Tower, I was stunned to see the second plane fly into the second tower. "Honey? Oh my god! I think ... you have to see this."

I remember feeling cold. The uncontrollable crying. The anger. The unanwereable questions of the day: Who? Why?

Against my desperate pleadings to please stay home, my girlfriend left for work. I never even got dressed on Sept. 11, 2001. I sat in my pajamas, transfixed to one of the four televisions in my home, all turned to different news channels as the day unfolded. A headset phone clipped to my waist for numerous calls to relatives, friends and my girlfriends for updates.

And then the first tower fell ... then the second. Both in a grotesquely precise way that mimed the perfectly timed explosions of demolition teams.

My mom Omaha, Neb. calling from her cell phone saying her hardline phone was down ... something was going on SAC. The shock of fear slicing through my heart at the notion my parents might now be in danger; followed shortly after with a report that indeed something was going on at SAC: President Bush was landing there to go to the bunker.

I remember a bombing going on somewhere in the middle east that day and me convinced that was were going to war and calling my girlfrend in hysterics, begging her to come home now.

I remember being more afraid than I have ever been in my life.

I remember being so angry I went outside at one point in the day and took a hammer to beat on the woodpile.

I remember the stunned looks on people's faces.

I remember the quiver in the voices of the reporters.

I remember the anguish I felt for those people who were trying to find a glimmer of hope that their loved ones had somehow escaped the ruins.

I remember being angry at our own arrogance which put us "above" this kind terrorism.

Mostly I remember the overwhelming sadness and greif that my life had fundamentally changed, that nothing was going to be the same, that the very core and essence of my being had been changed by this day.

I remember.