nmah5355.xml

nmah5355.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-01-03

I was in a hotel room in Sharonville, Ohio. I was in Ohio with my husband and two small children, because my mother had died the day before on September 10, 2001. We were getting ourselves in order that morning to head out and work on funeral arrangements. It was already a very sad day. My husband called me into the living area of our hotel suite when he saw the fire of Tower 1. He had just been flipping through the stations with the remote, when he saw a bldg he recognized on fire. I immediately got on the phone to my mother-in-law in Northern VA (20 miles from the Pentagon) to tell her to turn on her TV. While on the phone with her we watched the second Tower being hit. My whole family including two small boys were shocked, terrified, dismayed as we watched. Then the news came across somewhere in there about the Pentagon. My mother-in-law quickly got on the road and headed to Ohio. My husband and I have been to NYC before, so it was so devastating to see a place that we enjoyed so much being torn apart in such away.

My life changed in so many ways. One was business related. I am a travel agent, and like all of those in the travel industry making ends meet was nearly impossible for the next few months. I have always sold a lot of NYC packages, but to help boost the economy and especially that in NYC, I increased my advertising and sales of packages to Broadway and NYC. On a personal level, I am nervous in large bldgs, everytime I am in an airport (which is frequent as a travel agent), I am watching those around me. I have heightened my level of awareness you can say. On a deeper level I am still in shock by what has happened. I don't know where to begin to express my feelings for what happened. How to explain the horror and tragedy to my children. Its like ripping away their innocence. It changed my husband's life, as he went to work on a project called the First Repsonder, a utility command vehicle to help in disaster situations.

That it did happen. It wasn't a dream or some made up story. It seems so horrific that it can't possibly be real, but that it was. That so many people lost their lives, that two monumental bldgs are no longer there, that not only those in NYC were affected, but that lives around the world were affected. So many different nationalties, races, religions, and cultures live and visit NYC every day. That day a bit of the world died. That the USA was turned upside down, but yet banded together. That the Fire and Police Departments, strangers, and citizens pulled together to rescue and help in the tragedy. There are just so many things to list to be remembered. Simply, everything should be remembered. The photos, the tears, the astonishment, the horror, the innocence stolen, the war that began, the flowers and memorials, the changes in the travel industry, the extreme blow to the economy, and so on. September 11 may have been the day of the attack, the beginning to so many ends, the beginning to changes, but it was just the beginning of the pain and the heartache. The days and months and now than more than a year later, it continues to live in our memories, so vividly like it just happened a few moments ago. We are still grieving as a country and nation, and as the world. Will the grieving ever end? Did it ever end for those who lived through Pearl Harbor? Does it ever end for the families that are forever changed? It will go on for a long time to come. All of that must be remembered as well.

Yes, we flew ours. I have always admired the flag as a symbol our nation. Yes, that love for the flag, for what it stands for, has deepend considerably.