story10557.xml

story10557.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-04-24

This day started as usual for my boyfriend and I; we woke up at 4:45 a.m. to get ready for work and have time for some coffee before we had to be there at 6 a.m.. We got our coffee at the gas station a few blocks down the street from our apartment (this gas station happens to be right across the street from the Governor's mansion), and I made a passing comment that if anyone ever got mad at our governor and decided to bomb him, we would be in a world of trouble. It was a comment that at the time we laughed off. Little did we know what events were ahead of our country that day.

We reported to work on time and the morning at the restaurant we worked at went as usual, and at about 8:30 a.m., I went out the back door for a cigarette break. I had my cigarette and came back in and went about my job, and aboput five minutes after I had come in, I hear the volume on the radio go up. Way up. I ran back there to see what was going on, and a co-worker told me that a plane had just hit the world Trade Center. It was on the Howard Stern show, so We all thought "no way, it's Howard Stern, he's pulling a joke of soem kind." I brushed this off rather quickly, and went back to my work area. All of a sudden a woman came bursting through the doors saying that the Trade Center had been hit by a plane. This was the first moment I realized that it was real, and as quickly as I could I served the woman and went back and reported to my coworkers that this was real. By this time the second plane had hit, and we all dropped everything, forgot about our jobs, and crowded around this radio. It didn't even matter that we forgot about working because no customers were coming in anyway; this restaurant was very popular and very busy, and during lunch hours the place was packed. I think we had maybe 4 customers for lunch that day. Back to my story, every single one of us were speechless and could say nothing but "oh my god, oh my god." When we heard about the plane hitting the Pentagon, and planes possibly circling over northern Virginia, my boyfriend and I, especially him, became frantic. His older brother works in washington D.C., and his parents live in a town not very far from D.C.. We were grabbign every phone we could, trying to call his brother and parents, but the phone lines were all busy and we could not get through. This made us even more worried.

So we sat at work listening to the radio all day and getting updates on what was showing on t.v. from the occasional customer. My boyfriend and I got off work at 2 p.m. and raced home and switched on the news and kept trying to call his family. The first time I saw footage of the planes hitting the towers I was blown away. To this day, I cannot describe how I felt, as I know those who read this will understand. It wasn't until eleven o'clock that night until we got ahold of my boyfriend's family; his brother, instead of returning to his home, had gone to their parents house as soon as he could. We didn't sleep that night, all we could do was watch the news reports and cry. September 11, 2001 is a day that left memories in my mind and heart that will always be fresh, and that will always make me strive to be a better person for myself and others. I hope that I am living a life worthy to be considered a memeorial to those who died that day.