It was weird not coming to work on Sept. 11. It was the first anniversary of the attacks that fell on a Saturday.
Last year and the year before were very emotional. Traveling to work, all the reminders in the newspapers, crossing the bridge from Brooklyn and taking the time to remember that we are all looking at an empty piece of sky where the towers once stood. Remembering that Sept. 11 was the day that our hearts were broken and that our city witnessed, endured and experienced profound death and destruction beyond our wildest nightmares.
This time was different. It was Saturday morning. I didn't watch the news when I woke up. I went to the beach with a couple friends and enjoyed the day like any other day, while families and friends of those lost three years ago mourned all over again. It was easier for me this time. Last year, as I rode the train to work, some people openly sobbed. There is no way to describe what that feels like. Wrestling with your own emotions and memories and looking around to see others doing the same thing. I remember the woman across from me, unable to stop the tears from streaming down her face as her mind took her back to that day. It's hard, when the reminders are everywhere. It felt less difficult this time, as I avoided the television and the papers and the commute to work.
Just a few days ago, Kathleen's mom was here visiting. I went over to Kat's and made traditional Mexican mole and we drank margaritas. After dinner as we sat around the table, Kat's mom asked me about 9/11. Where I was. What I was doing.
I told her my story. I was on the bus, I lived in NJ at the time and I traveled through the Lincoln Tunnel everyday to Manhattan. One minute the towers were there, the next moment one of the towers was burning. No one knew what was happening. Everyone thought it was a terrible accident. Then the second tower was hit and we were prevented from entering the tunnel. Still, no one knew what was happening. We were all in shock as we looked across the Hudson at the inconceivable sight of the tallest buildings in our city being consumed in an inferno. The busdriver turned the bus around and drove us back from the direction we'd just come. When I got off the bus near my house I began to make phone calls. I didn't even know what to say. "Uh, the World Trade Center is burning...."
By the time I got home, the first tower had fallen. I crawled in my bed and watched the television and the tears began to come and they didn't stop for a long, long time. When the second tower fell it was just one crushing blow on top of another. I felt so overwhelmed by the horrible reality of what was happening. So stunned at the images I had seen and would continue to see.
I stayed home for the next two days, watching and waiting and crying and struggling to understand. I had only been working in NYC for less than a year. I was thousands of miles away from my family. The only comfort I had was in a person whom I despised under almost any other circumstances. I entered my own world of grief. After returning to work, I would come home every night and pour over photographs and stories and cry until I thought I couldn't cry anymore. But I was wrong. There are always more tears. I wrote many entries in my journal. I was borderline obssessed. I couldn't stop looking at the pictures. I couldn't stop the horrible pain in my chest. I couldn't stop thinking about all those people. Those poor, poor people.
The thing that has always haunted me the most is the fear that so many of the victims of that tragedy must have faced. The horror of being in your office and seeing a plane coming for your window and knowing that it's over... or sitting there quietly, going about your business, not even knowing what is hitting you as the walls of your safe world are torn open and engulfed in a nightmare. Being aboard one of those planes, terrified, fearing the worst, surrendering to fate...being confronted with the dilemma to stay on a burning floor or to jump from the window to your ultimate demise. Even now, these thoughts and memories seem so tangible and vivid.
While I was telling Kat's mom this last week, we all cried right there at the dinner table. It was an emotional moment that we shared with one another that night. Remembering, and allowing ourselves to feel sad and overwhelmed all over again.
Posted by Maria at September 13, 2004 12:36 PM