story10617.xml

story10617.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-05-20

It started off as a beatiful sunny day here in NY City. My family had said their ritual "See you laters" and we all went off to greet the day. I, a student at Leon M.Goldstein HS had just started my sophmore year and was still adjusting to my schedule, my new teachers and friends. I clearly remember that I had just walked into my English classroom highly excited to talk about our summer reading, A Seperate Peace when our principal, Mr Zaza, who had just strated his first year in our high school walked into our tiny classroom of about 20 kids. I thought he was going to introduce himself, or maybe welcome us back and encourage to do our best and start the year off right, but what he had to say changed my life as I knew it. "Ladies and gentlemen, I have a piece of rather sad news to tell you, this morning two planes had crashed into the world trade center and as of now, it is believed to be a terrorist attack...." I paused, my heart stopped and all I could think about was, "Wait a minute, my mother works there, OMG." I could see the image of a plane crashing into the ground and knocking her over with full force in my head. What do I do? Of course the news had spread and by ten o'clock most kids were either on their way home, or frantically trying to contact their parents. A group had gatherd in my math room and we all listend to the radio, somehow everything that was being said didnt sound as if it was happening just a few miles away, WW3? 10,000 casulaties? No, this is a place I had just been to three days ago, a place I often go to to admire the fountain or enjouy a free concert at, anything but the center of complete and utter chaos...I rushed home but my usual 45 minute route had chnaged into a three hour nightmare. People crowded the buses, the trains werent running anf no one had any idea of what was going on, Yet we could all the the smoke to the left of the city, we all smelled it, and we all knew someone, anyone, that was in the midst of all that terror.
I was too worried to cry and full of hope that she missed her train, or maybe stayed home, I had called everysingle relative that I knew, maybe she went to them if she couldnt get home, but no one answered, most of all, my mothers number was no longer in existence. Hour after hour I signed off and on line, I switched the channels all of which produced images of people covered in dust, bleeding crying, confused,terrefied. What couldve gone wrong? What happend they all thought to themselves as they stares into my screen. I wish I could answer them but I was a clueless. The name Bin Laden was never entioned to me before, nor was this Al Quada, why would they want to kill my mother? Why would they want to hurt us? What had I, or anyone affected by this tragedy ever done to them? That was of no matter because it was 6 o'clock and my aunt had come home. She heard from my mom she said. She traumtized but fine. Fine, and alive. I was relived but not fully, I wanted her here, at home and needless to say, she came home around 8, covered in dust and shaken,I embraced her with all my might. "Whats going on? What happened?" She asked. "I saw people jumping out of the building, everything shook..." Her story went on and once we showed her what was happening in the city, she broke down and cried, we all did. The days that followed didnt matter. I stayed glued to the TV and my mother was now unemployed, yet we all had hope, that we'd see a better day but although the number of casualties was lowered dramatically, and the blame stopped shifting from one group to the next, it broke my heart to learn that there were but a few survivors, yet I was overjoyed that one of them was my mom.