I Remember....

I remember I was late for work that morning. While driving in (well above the speed limit) I started flipping through the dozen or so radio stations on the dial trying to find something decent to listen to on the way into work. As I was cycling through the frequencies I heard a DJ make an out-of-place remark for a wacky morning show so I turned back the dial to find the station. That one statement was the beginning of a day I would always remember.

“We’re getting confirmed reports now that a airplane has…”

As I pulled into the parking lot of work I found the station again. They were reporting that a plane crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center and what they thought was an accident may not have been.

I remember walking into my office and a massive silence hung in the air replacing the clicks of keyboards in use and interoffice chatter. In the time I walked from my car into the building another plane hit the second tower. There was no longer a question whether or not this was an accident. We were under attack. We just didn’t know why or by whom. My friend Tom had a sister who worked in one of the towers along with a college buddy of ours, Dooley. At the time Tom was teaching English in Prague and may not have heard the news yet. I immediately emailed him with the news of what had happened. By the end of the day he emailed back. It took him seven hours to reach his family. His sister was fine. She happened to be running late for work that morning. Dooley was fine too. He started his vacation that day. My friend Jimmy also worked a few blocks away from the twin towers. I kept calling his cell phone on and off all day to find out if he was all right. But the service was down for most of the day. He called back that evening to tell me he was safe. Manhattan was in lock down and he was walking back to New Jersey.

I remember someone had found a few televisions in a store room and set them up in conference rooms throughout the building. We watched as news came through of two more planes going down. One plane crashed into the Pentagon and the other hit a field in Pennsylvania. I knew a friend of mine was working in the Pentagon so I rushed back to my desk to call her. After four or five tries I finally got a hold of her. The conversation was short, to the point and reassuring.

“They evacuated us. I’m fine. I have to go.”

I remember not much got done that day. For most of the day people were either mesmerized by the flood of news reports coming in or they were desperately trying to get information about family and friends who were at any of the three crash sites. Most of the cell phone service was down either do to the crashes or heavy call traffic. People were wandering the halls like zombies. Shock got the best of them and they still had not processed what had happened. I heard one co-worker crying in her cubicle muttering to herself.

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand why?”

I remember sitting at my desk obsessively refreshing my email inbox looking for some response from Tom that he had got my message and had been in touch with his family. But instead with each click of the mouse I got a new message from a friend somewhere in the world sending their sympathy and support for me and to the country. Each subject line carried the same message.

“We’re with you.”

I remember how fragile life is. How in the grand scheme of things we’re a blink of an eye and for no good reason what so ever we can no longer exist. I may not have known it at the time but that day was a tipping point for me. It may have taken a while to sink in but that horrific event changed the course of my life and taught me how to live my life, my way and now.