story5213.xml

story5213.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

At the beginning of August, I had such a strong premonition that something terrible was going to happen on September 12 that I ran to tell my husband and son. I did not know what was going to happen, I just knew it was going to be terrible. I thought that perhaps, since it was hurricane season, a strong hurricane might hit the U.S. The Saturday before Sept. 11, I cried all day and could not bring myself to get out of bed. That feeling lasted all weekend. By this time, I was constantly watching the Weather Channel because there were hurricanes forming. One in particular appeared to be moving toward the east coast of the U.S. I will never forget getting up on Tuesday, Sept. 11, and instantly turning on the Weather Channel. When they announced that the hurricane was turning away from the U.S., I felt relieved, and then instantly figured my premonition was wrong, and I had gotten myself worked up over nothing. I went to my school where I am a Speech Therapist and at 9:00 a.m. went into a classroom to get my students. They were at a special, but the teacher had a television on. I saw that a large building was on fire, and assumed she had a movie or video on. At that moment she told me about the plane hitting the first tower. Then the news began to come in about the other tower, the Pentagon, and the plane crashing in Pennsylvania. My husband works around Washington, D.C and I was unable to reach him by phone since all the circuits were full. We live in Pennsylvania, so the news about the crash hit especially hard. When I realized that the date was 9-11 and it was one day before my premonition of 9-12, I was stunned. While I knew from my premonition that something terrible was going to happen, I had never even envisioned something like what I saw. I felt frantic-I didn't know if my husband was safe, I was at school and our son was at his high school. All I wanted to do was run home and hug my husband and son. Instead, as teachers, we all had to be with the children and just wait things out. I found it very difficult to be strong around all the children and to have to act as if nothing really was amiss, when the feeling we all had was that the world as we knew it had just changed forever. My husband was able to call me eventually and he got home safely. I will never forget turning into our driveway and seeing his car there and feeling the most incredible sense of relief. That intensified when our son walked in the door from school. Needless to say, he wasn't allowed to go out (he wanted to go to the local park), but at that time no one had any idea of what was going to happen. The rest of our evening was spent reflecting, praying, and being thankful for being able to be together.