story9449.xml

story9449.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-09-01

It was about 7:50 AM CST. I was sitting on my sofa breastfeeding my infant daughter. My 9 year old son was sitting adjacent to me on the recliner. We were watching the local news station until it was time for my son to walk to school. When my son saw the first tower he thought it was cool. I then explained to him that many people were in that building and that some of them wouldn't make it out alive. My son was quiet and somber. Suddenly another plane flew into the camera shot and directly into the other tower. At first I was confused and thought that a computer reenactment had been done to show us the original crash. Then I realized that it was another plane. I looked at my son and realized that he didn't understand what had happened. I let him leave and walk to school thinking that one bad thing had happened far away in New York City. I didn't want him to have to comprehend that our country was undoubtedly being attacked. I watched my son walk the length of our street until he turned into his school walkway. Then I cried. I held my baby to my chest and cried. I called my office, where no one listens to radios during work hours, and told them to get to a television. They didn't know what had happened. I then called my husband, a policeman in the next town, at work. He confirmed my thoughts that this was at terrorist attack. He told me to go about my daily routine and stay calm. That's what I did that day. I drove to my chiropractor appointment. I saw a construction worker getting into his truck and asked him if he'd heard the news. He hadn't. I told him to turn on his radio. Any station. I saw a mail carrier. Same thing. In the chiropractor's office they had a CD with easy listening music playing. I asked them to turn on a news station. I stated that we all needed to understand that our lives would never be the same again. During the next couple of weeks, my family talked a lot, went to memorial services and prayed a lot and cried frequently. Our lives, our country, our world...will never be the same.