story1305.xml

story1305.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-20

I had the day off from work, so I got up late that day and got in the shower. As I came out of the bathroom, my wife called me from work to tell me a plane had hit the Twin Towers. I had thought it was only a small private plane, so I got a cup of coffee in my NYC skyline mug I purchased when I was in the city last and turned the TV on. I tuned in just in time to see the second plane slam into the tower. All I could do for what seemed like 30 min. was stand there and watch. I grew up in Lincoln Park, NJ, which is a suburb of NYC, and as a child watched all my friend's parents walk past my house to the train station in business suits and sneakers, carrying their dress shoes and breif cases, to catch the train to the city. I moved to michigan in my teens with my family, and met my wife here, but I always thought of NY/NJ as my home. After the shock of what was going on passed some, it dawned on me that many of my friends and relatives work and live in lower Manhattan. I first called my wife back, and pleaded with her to stay in her office all day, then come straight home, thinking that WW3 had just begun, then I called my mom, who lives near me in MI, to see if she has heard from anyone, which she hadn't. I then began to try calling everyone in NY, and my family in florida to see if anyone had heard anything, all the while watching TV. I remember speaking to my mom on the phone while standing outside, around noon or so. The aircraft all around America were supposed to be grounded by that point, and to my horror, I looked up and saw a large jet at a very high altitude flying south from Canada. I panicked!! Finally, while it was still in my sight, it turned back north and proceeded back towards Canada. The rest of that day and the next few where like a blur. The people of Michigan were understandably upset and shocked, but not nearly as much as I was, which left me felling sort of isolated. I work in The hospital in Lansing, and fortunatly for me, a nurse from the Bronx had started on my unit a few months before, so I had someone who understood and could grieve with. About a week after, we both found we had lost no family members, but many friends between us. I had an aunt who was in the subway station when the first tower was hit. She exited safely, and as a jaded New Yorker, shrugged her shoulders and headed towards the battery, where she went back to NJ. Her son-in-law was on the 20th floor of the north tower preparing for a meeting when the attacks came. He also got out safely and walked to his wife's office in mid-town. To this day, I am still drawn to all things about 9-11, and hope that somehow we will capture and punish the people responsible for this. My wife and I were going to visit NY/NJ around the time of the attacks, to show her where I am from and dispell her ideas of what a big city is like, but I haven't been able to go yet.