11 September 2009

Remembering

Like everyone else in America, I'll always remember where I was on September 11, 2001.

Fresh out of college, I had just started my first job as a social worker at a psychiatric hospital that August. I was immediately scheduled for a mandatory training in North Jersey for September 11th. Driving up there that morning was horrible.. I'll never forget the traffic and the anxious feeling that I had about being late to my "first professional training." I pulled into the building parking lot just in time. It was 8:30am.

As I found an empty seat, the training got started. Fifteen minutes later, someone came into the room and whispered into the ear of the speaker. She immediately got upset and then made the announcement to the rest of us. "One of the towers of the World Trade Center was just hit by a plane." I'll never forget the 2 women in front of me screaming. They were related to each other and the one woman's son worked there. They ran out of the room, along with several other people. I hope their loved ones were okay.

The training continued, though no one was really "there" anymore. As I sat in my seat and drew on my notebook, I remembered that my dad was in NYC for work that day. I got so anxious, that I grabbed my phone and ran out into the hallway to call my mom. When she answered the phone she was crying. I immediately thought of my dad, and asked her right away if she had talked to him. Thankfully, she had, and he was leaving the city before they decided to close the bridges. Whew.

Being at the training, I had not seen any pictures or video of what was happening nor did I have any clue what was really going on. I talked to my mom for awhile about what the news was saying and then she told me that the other tower was just hit. It was then that I {and everyone else in the world} knew that it wasn't an accident. I went back into the training and everyone was talking about what had just happened. They decided to let everyone go home to their families. Thank God.

As I left the building, I could see the city skyline and the black smoke in the distance. This couldn't be happening. I had just drove past the World Trade Center {via the Verrazano} on our way home from visiting Kacy at college just TWO DAYS before. I couldn't wait to get home and hug my family.

On this day, the 8th anniversary of 9/11, I hope that everyone is remembering the thousands lost. Remembering the volunteers that searched day and night for survivors. Remembering the heroes who were running up the stairs while everyone else was running down. Remembering.

I'd love to hear your story.

4 comments:

Susan F said...

Mine isn't so much a story - I was home getting ready to go to class and for some reason I had the news on while getting ready and watched it happen. I called my husband (bf at the time) and told him to turn on the news at work and then decided not to go to class, which was cancelled anyway.

The worst part - today is my Mother's birthday. I will never forget calling to tell her happy birthday and her crying saying nothing is good about it. She still doesn't really celebrate or enjoy it.

jenni from the blog said...

Aww, that's sad! I just took a friend out for his birthday today and he said the same thing. It's always just a gloomy/somber kinda day anymore. :(

Thanks for sharing!

Olivia's Mommy said...

With the planes leaving from Boston, there were many people in my town, even my church that lost their lives on this day. My cousin lives in San Francisco and he was on a United Flight back to SF that morning. We didn't know for hours if his plane was one. His left at 7:30 AM. He was deplaned in Iowa and called us not aware of what had happened and how lucky he was.

I remember jogging that morning and the view from the park down the street you can see the skyline of Boston and I always loved seeing that planes take off. It gives me chills to think that I saw those planes possibly taking off while I was innocently on my morning run and didn't realize what would happen to those people.

Once they found the terrorists paperwork on the flights they were targeting, my cousins was one of them but something made them not choose that flight. He remembers sitting in the United Terminal and chatting with people on from the other United flight.

It's such a sad day and it still makes me sick to my stomach to make me think about.

jenni from the blog said...

OMG Kerri, that is so scary! I'm soooo happy that your cousin is okay. It's just so sad to think about the people on the other planes. Why them? They were innocent travelers, just going home or going to visit friends/family, etc. It's so horribly sad :(

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