One hour earlier, at 7:42 a.m., I was dropping my daughter off at school. As I swung the car past the entrance and she hopped out, 'We Didn't Start The Fire' by Billy Joel came on the radio. Though I sang along as usual, my eyes misted up as they do every single time I hear that song.
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on and on and on
and on and on and on and on...
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it...
So it was with a tinge of melancholy hanging over me that I arrived at work ten minutes later. As usual, I parked, entered the building, went to my workspace, logged in and started making phone calls. At that time, my job was in Inside Sales and I had a long day of calls in front of me.
Around 9:30 a.m., I called a favorite customer of mine, Bobby*, parts manager at Noname Chevrolet in Colon, Michigan. It took him a while to get to the phone and when he did, I could tell something was terribly, terribly wrong. He was nearly incoherent and it sounded like he was choking back sobs. All I can remember him saying was "This is no accident. There is no way two planes could crash into those buildings like that on accident." He babbled on about the World Trade Center but I had no idea what he was talking about. He told me he had to hang up and we terminated the call. I sat in bafflement for several minutes about what he could have been talking about. It was so unlike Bobby; he was always laid back, friendly, jovial.
To no one in particular, I said aloud, "This guy just said there was a double plane crash in New York." What an understatement! About 10 or so minutes later, my co-worker John*, next to me (we were housed in a little cube farm) jumped up and hanging over the divider between us said breathlessly, "Now a plane has crashed into the Pentagon!" In rising panic, I wondered if the country was under attack and if I should get under my desk. Would they drop a nuclear bomb next? Should I round up my kids, husband, sister and cats and make a run to northern Michigan where my husband still owned a house? It was in the middle of nowhere; it might be safer. It wasn't rational thinking. I called my husband; he knew only a little more than I did.
By ones and twos, my coworkers and I drifted over to where there was a TV in a conference room. I could not believe what I saw. No one knew what was going on. Panic. Total chaos and destruction. I remember nothing else about the rest of the work day.
At home in the evening, every TV station was full of this unbelievable chain of disaster. It was at home that I heard about Flight 93 going down 80 miles outside Pittsburgh. Seeing those towers collapse, seeing the terror-stricken people jumping off the sides of the building was the most horrifying thing I've ever seen and hope never to see anything like it again. Over and over it felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. I thought of all the families who had loved ones in those buildings. I thought of all the service providers, the firefighters, police, paramedics, doctors, nurses, everyone trying to do their job against the greatest of challenges and overwhelming odds. And of all their families, who must be paralyzed with grief, worry and fear. I couldn't stop crying for them all. What an unnameable horror. It was like hell unleashed on earth.
In the meantime, my mother was at my sister's house under hospice care and was dying. We didn't even tell her what was going on; she wouldn't have understood it and we didn't want her to think about it or be concerned about something so abhorrent during her last days. She passed away three weeks later. We spent the days, weeks and months following 9/11 alternating between numbness, disbelief and deep grief.
Fifteen years later, the scars of our collective broken hearts throb with pain in remembrance of this cataclysm perpetrated in cold blood by those who are driven by ignorance and hatred.
Sadly, these monsters have won. Today our society and culture has morphed into one that is fueled by fear and hatred. We have succumbed to it. You see it all around you in the travesty of an election campaign, the intense, unrestrained hatred all over the internet and we see the results on the nightly news. Soon we will all be numb to the abominations we hear of daily.
We must group together and rebuff this onslaught of foulness. Don't let this daily trickle of poison being force-fed to you slowly steal your soul. Stand up and fight for what is right and good. Don't sink into the mire of the lowest common denominator. Don't accept it. Don't allow it. Don't think it. Don't entertain it. Stand fast.
We can fight~rise above~change the world~we CAN!
Don't let those who were killed have died in vain.
September 11, 2001--NEVER FORGET.
*Names changed to protect privacy.
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