story1830.xml

story1830.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-06

My first inkling that something was wrong was when we returned from breakfast to hear a voicemail from my sister-in-law asking us not to go downtown that day. She heard one of the towers was on fire. I immediately turned on the tv and heard about the first plane. As I was watching in horror, the second plane hit. As realization dawned, so did the horror of what I was seeing. It made me physically sick. I was in a hotel in mid-town with my two small children as my husband was attending a conference a few blocks away. But we weren't tourists. We both grew up in NY, went to Stuyvesant, worked in the city and had both passed through the trade center on our commutes before we moved to the west coast 2 months prior. This was an attack on a city that was near and dear to our hearts. Not knowing what to do, I waited until my husband came back. Being the boy scout that he is, he sent me out to get food and supplies. I walked out on Lexington and looked up at the surreal sight of smoke billowing out of the towers. What hit me was how normal everything was, with the exception of the towers in the background. It looked like business as usual. Did they not know what was happening? I saw a few people on cell phones look up at the scene and cover their mouths, but otherwise, everything else looked pretty normal. Still sick to my stomach and not thinking clearly, I returned to our hotel room with a box of granola bars. We decided that it would be better to walk up the 20 blocks to my sister-in-law's apartment than to stay in the hotel. We packed what we could, waited for my sister-in-law to join us, and soon joined the mass exodus of people walking uptown. It was a very quiet journey, given how crowded the streets were. Every now and then we saw people covered in soot and some with bandages and casts. Once uptown and settled, my husband and I split up to hunt for groceries. My husband went to 2nd avenue while I went to 3rd. He made the right choice. It took me almost 3 hours to buy an armload of groceries. There were no carts or baskets left and the line snaked through the entire supermarket. People on line with me were just the most supportive. One man with a blackberry sent emails for those who could not reach loved ones by phone. Many people helped to carry my groceries and held my place in line when I needed to go back to the apartment to feed my baby who was still nursing. The cashier let me go when I was short of cash since credit cards could not be validated. That day, I saw New Yorkers as they really are.

Needless to say, we were not able to fly back as scheduled the following day. In fact, we could not leave New York until that Saturday. In those intervening days, we felt helpless, like the rest of the nation, and weary from the tension of all the bomb threats, sirens, and jets flying overheard. My three-year-old saw more than I wanted him to see or understand. He asks why all the color fell from the buildings and would more planes crash into skyscrapers. The other day, he saw smoke in a field and asked if a building fell down. I'm upset about the loss of childhood innocence. I'm upset about the lost colleagues, neighbors, and childhood friends. But I think what is the most upsetting is the lack of conscience in those who thought that an act such as this can be lauded or justified in any way.