story1984.xml

story1984.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-09

I was in the shower when my husband called me and told me to turn on the television, that a plane had hit the WTC. At first I did not take it too seriously because I thought that it had probably been a small plane. That it had been an accident.

I stood watching the TV and was stunned when I thought I was watching a replay of the first plane hitting the tower. It was not until several days later that I realized that I had seen live the second plane hit.

Then I pulled my shocked self together and tried to reach our son who had just moved to Lower Manhattan. No response on his cell phone, his wife's or their home number. I was not worried about our daughter in law since she would have been in class at NYU. But our son still had not started his program there. He had been enjoying his free time exploring the city, so he could have been anywhere.

As it turned out, he was in bed. When he heard on the radio what had happened, he grabbed his cameras and ran to his corner from where the whole thing unfolded before his eyes.

He was able he finally was able to reach a friend's cell phone in Chicago and his sister in Orlando who both then notified us. We spent a scary 2 1/2 hours not knowing where he was.

I felt numb for the next week. I won't ever forget it. I felt dead inside, hopeless, looking around me not understanding how people could be planning house remodeling, weddings etc. It took awhile, but I finally got over the depression, but not the obsession of reading about what happened. So I don't.

The night of September 11, we gathered at our synagogue to pray, to try and find some answer. The service concluded with our singing of "America, the Beautiful". Never in my life had that simple tune sounded so poignant, have the words meant more than on that night when our world changed forever.