Remembering 9/11

The year was 2001. My daughter was 5 years old and my son had just turned 4. It was 36th birthday.

The day started out like any other. I had recently gotten out of bed when my husband called from work. He asked if I wa watching TV. I told him I was not. He told me that I should turn on the television, then he said he had to go.

I turned on the television moments after the 2nd airplane hit the second tour of the World Trade Center. Then shortly after there was news that the Pentagon had also been hit, and then more news that another plane headed for the White House had crashed without reaching its target. I remember just standing there in shock watching the television, when all the sudden it hit me. My husband worked in down town Chicago at the time and was in a building right next to the Sears Tower. Could the Sears Tower be next? I ran to the phone to call my husband, but apparently everyone was trying to call loved ones in the city that day, because some of the calls were not getting through, and others were just un-answered. They had already evacuated many of the buildings in downtown Chicago that day. So my husband's building had already been evacuated. I started to freak out with worry. He took the train every day so I figured it would difficult for him to get out of Chicago, which was true. Every train was packed to capacity. This was a time when not every body had a cell phone like they do now so he did not have a cell phone to call me or for me to call him.

In my mind my husband was in big trouble and I was terrified. I was fortunate that day as my worst nightmare had not come true, but many other people's worst nightmare's did come true that day. If a plane was meant to hit Chicago it never had a chance, there were rumors that one was on its way, but I don't really know for sure.

After about an hour and a half of panicking, I heard from my husband. He was at a co-worker's home still in the city but a good distance from the Sears Tower. He said he would stay there until the panic and train crowds wore down. Grateful to of heard from him and knowing he was safe my panic subsided. Then my emotions turned to grief.

I began to cry because I knew many wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, and children, sisters, brothers, neices, nephews, uants uncles, and grandparents would not get a phone call that would release them from panic, many of them would get news that substantiatd every possible fear they could have ever imagined. This sense of empathy was heart breaking.

There also came this sense of knowing that none of our lives would ever be the same again. Are country had been attacked. We were attacked on our own soil, and it was civilians that were attacked. People just going about their daily lives. People who went in to work that day like it was any other day not knowing it would be their last day on earth. We all knew torrorists existed, but they were far from us, and most of us never even thought of them until that day. It shook our lives and changed our lives forever.

If they had sought to divide us or tear us apart however, they failed miserably because for a short period of time we became more of a nation than probably ever before in the history of the United States. At that time we stopped being republicans, democrats, or independants we were all just Americans. Americans who were hurt and who were angry and who felt a sense of loss over other fellow Americans. Americans who shared a bond and if only for a short time realized that we are a nation that can't be divided at the worst of times.