nmah6562.xml

nmah6562.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-07-22

I was ready for work earlier than usual on September 11, 2001 because my car was in the shop and a friend was driving me to work. Just before 6:00 AM I was in the kitchen of our tiny house and my husband had the news on, as usual. The broadcast from LA was interrupted with a story of a fire at the World Trade Center. I looked around the corner to see the image of smoke billowing from the tower. My husband continued to watch as I went back to final preparations for work. Shortly after 6, my husband, Tony, exclaimed, "There's a plane. Oh my God! It hit the building, Deb, it flew into the building!" I came out of the kitchen as the first replay started and as I saw the plane fly into the tower I went numb and my heart sank. 'We're under attack" I said more to myself than to anyone else. My ride arrived, and we left for our 23 mile commute to our school. We are both high school teachers. As we drove, we listened to news, and were on our cell phones to our spouses still at home. When we arrived at our high school we gathered with others around available tv's. Everyone was quiet and subdued. Everyone felt scared, ill and sick. Classes started and one thing a school requires is that life go on. We taught, we talked to our students about the events and we offered what reassurance we could. It was during my prep period that the first tower collapsed and I abandoned any idea of carrying on "normally". I made arrangements to have a tv hooked up in my classroom and for the last four periods of the day, we simply watched from afar as life changed completely and in some ways forever. Some of the students were saddened. Some were quiet. Some viewed it almost as a movie or video game. I have to admit, I was unpleasantly struck by their lack of concern and what would continue to be their lack of feeling that this had any real relevance for their lives. Finally, the day ended, and I was able to get home. My husband and I began a months long routine of going about our daily lives of work, housework and chores and then being completely and totally absorbed and depressed by the scenes from Ground Zero. Our hearts were broken evening after evening and we felt as if so much sadness and grief at one spot and at one time were almost unbearable. But we had to be as close as we could get, and that was through the television and our newspapers. I poured over every Los Angeles Times article many, many times, trying to glean some sense of what had happend. I studied the diagrams of the buildings so I could understand where the planes had hit and I listened hard to the stories of surviviors and people looking for and listening for their loved ones. I wanted to follow the rescue and the search. But mostly I was just unbearably sad and grief stricken for so much loss. I had trouble sleeping and eating and found it difficult to concentrate on teaching school. It was just the second most sad time of my life. The saddest was the unexpected death of the 30 year old daughter of my neighbor and good friend 3 years earlier.

Yes, life has changed. I have more fear and more appreciation of how fragile life is. I try very hard to live life with meaning for myself and my family because I know we hang by a thread. I am angry at the religious zealots who have wreaked so much havoc on innocent people by their insane actions, and I am angry at those in our country who are zealots as well now, and who exploit the events of Sept. 11, 2001 for their political ends. I have a lot of Sept. 11 memorabilia, I saved the newspapers from Sept. 10, 2001 to Decemberr 31, 2001. I have the New York Times obituary book, several news media books, and tv documentaries about the day. I continue to speak of it with my classes and friends. I downloaded and printed several articles from the New York Times. One very special piece is called "Fighting to Live as the Towers Died" It is a record of phone calls from people who were doomed to die in the towers. It is a very powerful piece. It is still sitting on my coffee table as I write this.

It should be remembered as a day when a free people payed a terrible price for that freedom. With freedom comes risk, the more free, the more risk. I hope we are strong enough to stand that risk and do not decide to curtail our freedom instead.

I did fly the American flag. I think it is a great looking flag. A neighbor built a substantial flagpole that week and flies a flag there today on the road where all passersby can see it. I abhor the use of our flag by the right wing zealots who have taken over this county and their "claiming" of the flag as a symbol for our immoral war in Iraq. As a U. S. History teacher I try to get kids to realize that countries are like people, some good things, some bad things, and always our goals are to live up to our ideals. I think this is what the flag and patriotism are about, not blind allegiance to a position.