story1766.xml

story1766.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-05

My husband should be the one to write this but I am not sure if he would be willing to. Right now he is in NYC and I have decided to write what I can recall of that day we will never forget. It will stand out in my memory along with the day JFK was shot in Dallas when I waw a teenager in school about 35 miles from the site. You remember where you were and what you were doing.... My husband spends a lot of time in NYC at the corporate offices taking care of business at least five to ten days a month or more. The office is on 39th and 5th Avenue. On 9/11/01 I was asleep when the phone rang at 8:05 a.m. My husband was calling to ask if I had the TV on. I told him no and asked why he would call to ask me that. He said that there was a report of a plane hitting one of the towers. He didn't know if it was a small plane off course or what. He couldn't imagine an airliner hitting a tower as they didn't go that way. He got off the phone and I turned on the TV and within minutes saw the the second plane hit the second tower. I was horrified. I immediatly called my husband and told him I wanted him out of there, NOW!!! I called the airport, bus station, train...nothing available. I called his local office to see if there was anything that could be done. As the news became more grim my stomach just tied up in knots. My husband calls me every little bit to let me know what is happening. He tells me that one the ladies in the office is crying and distraught as her husband called and told her he saw people jumping from the buidings. After a while my hubands office is closed down. He goes out on Fifth Avenue and looks down the street and can see the towers burning. Later on he saw that they were no longer standing. What a shock....having been on top of the towers years ago...looking down on the city...feeling the wind blow and feeling the slight movement of the towers...and now they are...gone!! My husband was concerned about people he knew in Tower 2. He had a big project that they were working on that was nearing a critical date for completion. Later on in the day he receives word that all of the people from that office had escaped from the building. This was great news to know that their lives were spared. At the corporate offices in Birmingham, Alabama and Jackson, Mississippi the personel officers were contacting the associates in NYC and trying to assure them that they were working on a way to get them out of town as soon as possible. I had a call and was told that my husband would be out of NYC by noon the following day. Thank God for cell phones!!! My husbands worked beutifully all that day!!! That saved me so much stress. I gave my husband the information and the details of where he and about one hundred other associates are to meet etc. the next day. He can't check into his room yet as it's too early so he goes and walks the streets carrying his heavy briefcase and laptop. I get another call that evening when he checks into his room....he just wants to get home!!! Around noon on the 12th a bus chartered from Birmingham, Alabama arrives in NYC and picks up the associates. My husband calls me as they cross over into Newark, he stated that it was such a relief to cross the bridge. When he got home he was in a lot of pain due to as we found out later, a ruptured disk from carrying so much stuff. He didn't really talk a lot about what he saw or how he felt. I knew he was in denial. The very next week after the incedent he had to go back for three days. I didn't want him flying up there, and I knew he was a little apprehensive, but he had to go. During his free hours he walked the streets...went down to the ground zero area and told me about the awful smells and dust everywhere. What really bothered him was all the posters and photo's along the sidewalks and on the trees etc. It seemed to haunt him. About six weeks later he had to give a little report in church on 9/ll and he broke down. I have never seen him cry...much less show emotion. I knew than that this had really been very hard for him and tried to get him to talk more. As time went on he began to open up and share his feelings and start to heal. With the pain he was going through with his back and the incident he lost over twenty pounds and looked so haggared. Just such saddness in his eyes. Needless to say it has made us take a look at priorities in our lives. We as a family and as a country and world will never be the same. A month after 9/11 we went to the beach for a vacation and rest. It was so errie.....we would be in our room looking over the gulf and see patrol boats and hear and see the helicopter's flying down the beach front. It felt like we were in another world....our sense of security was gone. In March I flew up to NYC with my husband and went down to ground zero. What will forever stand out in my mind is looking up in the trees as we waited in line to view the site, and seeing venetian blinds and clothing blowing in the wind. That really left an imprint on my mind. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families around the world who lost loved ones and jobs due to a senseless act of ignorance.