story1145.xml

story1145.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-19

It was a beautiful fall-like day and I had woken up worried that morning. No, I did not have any psychic intuitions of the disastrous events that were to happen later that morning. I was worried about a trivial court case over some silly bar brawl that was calling my boyfriend into court on that day. I had written in my journal just before we were about to leave, ?I am so worried right now, my stomach is in knots??

We approached the courthouse around 8:15 a.m., and minutes into the court session, it turned out that my worrying was (as in most cases) all for nothing, for the case was dismissed. Shortly after 9 a.m. we arrived back home and our cell phones and the house phone were all ringing. I answered the house phone first, for I was closest to it. It was my friend telling me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. ?Quick, quick!? I told my boyfriend, ?Turn on the t.v.!? He did, and there it was, the first plane?s smoky remains smashed into one of the WTC buildings. My knees had locked, and I collapsed on the couch, my eyes fixated on the tragedy that had befallen our country. When the second plane crashed, I knew something was terribly wrong?that this was an attack. Then there was news of a crash into the Pentagon, and another in Pennsylvania. Terrorism, I knew, was the case. It was like the Oklahoma City bombing all over again, only this tragedy was one of bigger, more catastrophic proportions. I began to cry and get shaky, and called everyone I knew, just as they were all trying to call me. As my boyfriend and I spoke to our families on our phones, we held hands tightly. My friend called from Boston (I live ten minutes away) and told me that the city resembled a ghost town; that everyone had left work, school, and recreational activities, all to go home and be with family. She told me how strange it felt as she made her way home. She said it felt like the end of the world to see a city quiet, not a soul in sight.

The whole day consisted of closely watching the news, and praying so hard that the victims had escaped, or would be found alive. My heart, like so many, was ripped in two, just imagining the fear and terror all of the victims had. What they had to go through was unimaginable. It was so unreal, so unlike anything I ever thought I would see in my lifetime. Watching the events unfold before my very eyes, people?s reactions, desperate, frightened people jumping to their deaths so as to escape from the evil disaster brought upon them that fateful morning?it was all too much to bear. It did not seem real. It did not seem that there were human beings capable and disgustingly rotten enough to carry out this ultimate destruction and the mass murder of thousands of innocent people.

That night before I went to bed, I opened my journal from where it sat earlier that morning when I last wrote. The last lines, ?I am so worried right now, my stomach is in knots?? seemed so inappropriate for me to write at eight a.m. that morning on September 11th, before a real tragedy had hit. Suddenly, every worry in my life seemed so small and unimportant at that moment. I felt guilty for having worried about something so insignificant and meager in comparison to the tremendous loss experienced by millions of people that day. I closed my eyes and prayed to God, unable to erase the horrible images that I am sure were playing in all Americans? minds that night. I prayed and I wept until my eyelids were as heavy as my heart was, ever since learning of the horrible events that took place on September 11th, 2001. From that day forward, I knew life would never be the same.