story211.xml

story211.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-03-11

I was on the phone with my mother in my office. We were chatting
about the usual mundane and happy things that preoccupy
our days. Suddenly mother exclaimed...a plane just flew into one
of the World Trade Center towers. There was a heavy silence from
the phone and then she said the Pentagon has been hit.
I just remember forgetting my job and completely reverting
my work space computer to a news center. I remember thanking God
that my father had cancelled his trip to New York that weekend before.

Later that morning, I was asked to attend an awards ceremony
for one of my colleagues. She had friends that worked in
the Pentagon. She had decided to go ahead and accept the reward
because she wanted to remember that there is good amidst this
horror. Throughout the ceremony, the University President
refrained from his usual wonderful story telling and began
focusing on the spirit of life that this ceremony represents.
The rest of the day the University was awash with TV sets in
classrooms, students crying, people running wildly around holding onto
each other and trying to comfort one another. There were
angry discussions and incoherence.

Since that day, I have had my share of nightmares but mostly
there is grief...grief for those who had to jump, those whose
lives were ended in incomprehensible terror. Grief that our nation
didn't take the foreshadowings seriously. Grief that there is such
a horrifying inhumanity. The rage I feel is equally powerful.
There is not a day that doesn't go by that I can't fully comprehend
the terror, the horror or the pure evil that drove these acts.