nmah6509.xml

nmah6509.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-04-26

I was sitting in the doctor's waiting room in Buffalo,,NY, with my 2 year old son. We had been on vacation in Florida and the last day of the trip, my son had a seizure. We flew home on September 8th. My husband took off for a flight to SanDiego on September 9th for a business conference. I had made a follow-up medical appointment for my son for the morning of September 11th. We were watching television in the waiting room when pictures appeared of the damage from the first plane that hit the WTC.
I remember Bryant Gumbel, I remember the people around me wondering if a small private aircraft had mistakenly collided into the building. I remember feeling ice water running through my veins and telling anyone who would listen to me that this was a terrorist attack. Then we all saw the second plane hit.
Then there was shocked silence. Employees from all the medical offices filtered out into the waiting room...people were terribly silent, some were crying...and gradually, quietly everyone left until it was just my son and me sitting alone in that waiting room.
I didn't know what to do...my first thoughts were for my son...to make sure he got the medical treatment he needed before I set foot out of that building...not knowing what was going on...I feared that maybe we would not be able to return. So I begged the office staff to find a doctor to check on him before I left.
People in the doctor's office were openly weeping. One employee's fiance was supposed to be in the WTC.
The doctor examined my son, and that is when I started to cry. My husband was in San Diego, my God what is happening?
I stepped back into the main office...the clerk told me the towers collapsed...they what? I couldn't digest the horror.
I am confused by the sequence of events during part of this... it was surreal. The pentagon was hit. I had no words to console the shocked receptionist who collapsed into a waiting room chair as she looked at the horror.
I went out into the parking lot with my son, determined to get his medicines before we went home. In the middle of the parking lot was a woman holding her cell phone and openly weeping. She just had heard from her husband who was supposed to be on a plane from Boston, MA...thank God he was okay...I held her and comforted her as she sobbed with relief. I grew more terrified wondering if my husband would be safe.

Life will never be the same. I lost all innocence regarding the veil of contentment of living the average American life. I am sadder. I am angrier, but not so much at the terrorists as at the events that led up to such an attack, and our nation's response. I now can find Afghanistan on a map, I am horrified that we sent them weapons, but have not tried to help this impoverished nation by sharing our wealth. I wonder if in sharing food, supplies, education...we could have prevented Afghanistan from becoming the breeding ground for terrorism?
I am outraged at the Patriot Act, the watering down of our Constitution, the attempts to govern us with fear, and so deeply saddened at the wars waged in repsonse to our American fear.
So very sad...violence breeding more violence.

For a brief moment in time, we became a country united, I felt the embrace of other nations as they sent forth their condolences. I felt proud of people unifying to do what they could to be of comfort to each other. I felt the walls disintegrate on the morning of September 11th as I embraced a total stranger in a parking lot and consoled her.
My wish is that America would learn to be more generous to countries that need our support, our food, our resources...that is how we fight terrorism.
My wish is that our nation would learn to not share weapons, to not breed more Osama bin Ladens and to not judge harshly people of many faiths.

no.