story2893.xml

story2893.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

My day had gotten off to a rough start. It just seemed to me that people had somehow just forgotten where their heads were on the road, and this is an hour before anything in the world went wrong. I remember saying to myself, I just can't wait to get back to the house and get off the road and away from this craziness. Then I remember getting home and getting online like I typically do every day to chat with my cousin in Upstate NY, My Hometown for 26 years too.
While we were chatting it up I remember my cousin sending me a message that said "OH MY GOD, TURN ON YOUR TV IF IT ISN'T ALREADY ON!!!" Well, my tv was not on so I turned it on to CBS. I see the aftermath of the first plane in the World Trade Tower. My first thoughts at that moment were oh my god, how did that happen. As I was sitting there watching the coverage I remember seeing the second plane off in the distance behind the towers and I remember seeing it get closer and closer and I realized it wasn't just a small plane it was a jumbo jet. As soon as that second plane hit my cousin and I each sent the same message to each other, that message was "that was no accident, this was planned" and next message was one word "Usama". For some reason it was just instantly in my mind that this was the work of a madman known as usama bin laden who many people didn't even know existed. I am an avid follower of daily news locally and world wide..I like to be well informed of what is happening in this crazy world.. and I remember having heard talk of bin laden in the news in the recent weeks prior to Sept 11. To this day I still don't know why I thought that maybe it was the fact I had kept up with the news, but my gut didn't tell me it was anything but him. My next thought turned to the people trapped in those buildings and the people who had already lost their lives. I prayed that since it was before 9 am when the first plane hit that not as many people that are usually in those buildings had gotten there yet. I kept praying that many people saw the first plane and didn't continue on their way to work. Unfortunately I had to work shortly after all this happened so I made my phone calls to my family in New York and my family in New Jersey only to find out that not only was this a tragic day for all of NY it was also a tragic day for my family that will be hard to forget because of what happened in NYC that day. My younger sister lost her baby that morning and the events in the city that morning now make it hard for me to forget that too, I only hope that as time goes on it gets easier for her and for me. I then headed to work listening to this all unfold on the radio. On my way to work I hear on the radio that a plane has now hit the pentagon. I am horrified by all this and start to panic but decide I must go to work and keep my chin up and try to deal with this as it goes. While I was at work the towers came down and the day just seemed to be getting worse. Then the news of the downed plane in Pennsylvania. Could it get any worse? In the next few hours and weeks it did get worse, but it reminds me of something my mother always tells me, "things always get worse before they get better." I guess that is true but at the moments it doesn't seem comforting. My mother was one of the many brave people to step foot on a plane in the next two weeks after september 11. My heart was in my throat the entire time I knew she was on that plane and I was never so happy to see anyone in my life as I was when she landed in Orlando. But as I said, things get worse before they get better. My mother left to fly back to NY the day that Bush declared war on terrorism. So as you can imagine my heart was in my throat again and I am so proud of my mother for getting on that plane without showing an ounce of fear. In closing I just want to say, we are a nation united, never have we not been, we are America and we will overcome this evil and for it all we will be stronger. GOD BLESS THE USA!!!