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9/11 – a day we all remember, and a day that will live in infamy. During the first eleven days of September, we invite you to tell us about that day, who and what you recall, and what it all means to you ten years later.
Please feel free to share your remembrances with us. You may do so anonymously simply by using the word Anonymous in the name field. You do need to provide a valid email address, however, your email address will not be displayed when you post your comment.
I will always remember how the sky was so incredibly blue and clear. Then the absolute silence – no planes flying – no jet trails in the sky. That calm was always in stark contrast to the terrible events of the day. It does not seem like 10 years – I remember September 11, 2011 as if it was yesterday.
September 11 was a day when my world changed. The uncertainty of what was happening and how bad it would or could get was added to by the news that my cousin Jimmy was missing. He worked at an investment firm in the second tower. He was never heard from again. We all know on some level that bad things happen and life is short, but we choose to ignore those facts. September 11 was a day that showed me how truly fragile our way of life really is.
I was watching a Tracey Ullman interview on the TODAY SHOW when they interrupted to say there seemed to be a terrible plane accident at the World Trade Center. During a live interview about the impact of the first plane, the second plane hit and it became horrifyingly obvious that this was something more. I turned the channel so my young children wouldn’t be scared…. But, all day I kept sneaking into the bedroom to watch the small black & white TV — fearful but transfixed. I knew we were so lucky when, unlike many others, my husband came home from work and we could be together as a family.
I was working and met with a customer to discuss a project. My wife called me and told me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I met with another customer who had been watching the news and there were erroneous reports that buildings other than the Pentagon in Washington had been attacked. I stopped by my parents house and watched the coverage for awhile before finishing my work and going home.
I was working and a fellow employee got a call telling him about the plane hitting the World Trade Center. He got a TV that was used for training and put rabbit ears on it to get the news.. at lunch time I had to get away from it all and walked the Rockland Breakwater – everything was normal there.
As a bereaved parent (I lost a child to an accidental death in 1998), my first reaction was deep sorrow and sympathy for the immediate family members who had just lost loved ones suddenly and unexpectedly. To me, 9/11 is a personal tragedy for those affected. I think the enduring tragedy is that this single event was used to redefine our country from that day forward. I thought then and I think now that the terrorists got lucky – that they never envisioned bringing the entire buildings down. Americans completely over-reacted to this event.
Having lived and worked in New York City prior to moving to Maine, I felt a deep sadness and anger on 9/11 as that I loved the city I spent so much time in. The day itself was unimaginable and very difficult to process, even to this day. But the weeks following proved more difficult. My sister, having just had surgery asked for my help to take care of her daughters while recovering. She lives about 40 minutes from Manhattan. Each day the newspaper listed page after page, six columns wide in the smallest point size readable name after name of bodies recovered or still missing. The first day of my stay I read 13 names of High School friends whom I will never see or speak with again. I didn’t pick up a newspaper again during my stay there. I think of those friends and all those who lost their lives that day in each of the target areas. My heart and prayers go out to those who lost loved ones, family, friends, and to those who continue to have a difficult time processing and dealing with 9/11. I suspect it is many.
My toddler son and I were visiting my parents here in Camden, where my family now lives as well. Our flight home on the 10th was cancelled, so we re-scheduled for the 12th, and, of course, we actually were not able to leave Maine for another two weeks. Our home then was in Bucks County, PA, across from the greater Princeton, NJ, area, where many residents commute to jobs in NYC. My friends told me about the cars left behind in the commuter train parking lots near us, and that heart-wrenching image has never left me. In addition, the pilot of the second plane to strike the World Trade Center lived in the town next to us. However, perhaps the most eerie element for me, on a selfish level, was learning that some of the terrorists had come through the Portland airport on the 10th, while my son and I were waiting for many hours as our plane kept being delayed. Overall, though, after trying to absorb the horror of the event and the piercing grief for all those who perished and for their bereaved loved ones, I remember the overwhelming feeling that nothing would ever be the same, and what a terribly sad realization for all Americans, for all decent people in the world, and for me, as the mother of a very young child.
My family and I live in a community located about 30 miles outside of Manhattan. On the morning of Sept 11th I was in a grocery store when I heard someone comment that a plane hit one of the World Trade Center buildings. This has happened before involving small crafts and minor damage so at first I was not terribly alarmed. Then within the next few minutes more voices called out additional information and my concern grew. In the parking lot people were shouting about train service to and from the city having been halted. The car radio reported the attack on the Pentagon. Hurry home. I watched TV coverage of the damaged towers. First one tower and then the other fell. Names, faces flashed through my mind. Was there a way out? Had there been time to evacuate? Could they outrun the storm of debris? And then I felt an emptiness inside as wide and unholy as the space were the towers had stood. We lost people that day. I see their faces. I know their names. In the days and months and years that followed that sunny, blue skied, unabsorbable, horrific morning, the openness with which people grieved was comforting to me. Grief is not a pretty thing. It is not something we run towards. And it is often something we hide. But not on Sept. 11th 2001, and not now. Grief is still there; on the faces of families of firefighters and financiers, schoolchildren, shopkeepers. It is on your faces and mine. We have learned to grieve openly. We bow our heads and shut our eyes and weep and then, miraculously, we lift ourselves up and look outward towards each other, and together, begin a new day.
That fateful day I was with some friends camping in Baxter State Park and how lovely and serene it was. Gradually we realized that something aweful had happened but we had no access to the outside world except for people newly arrived in the park who had limited information. We were not sure if America had been invaded or bombed or what. We did notice that there were no trails in the sky from aeroplanes. Should we cut our trip short? Were we safer were we were?
When we left the Park I bought a newspaper and read to the group what had happened. We worried about our families, and the felt the tragedy for all the victims of this horrible act. We could not wait to get home and embrace our loved ones – it seemed like we had lost our innocence that day.
I still have a lump in my throat when I recall that time. I am glad I did not watch the blow by blow account on TV then -I sure it must have been so traumatic.
After 9/11, and I lived in NYC at the time, I thought that the appropriate “memorial” was to leave a great big gaping hole–a REAL reminder of the date, its perpetrators, and its many causes.
No one would hear that maybe it was “simply” an attack of war upon us, as we had been attacking (and supporting those who do attack) other peoples for what, generations now?
Try these: Palestine, US coup d’etat in Iran 1953, First Gulf war, Somalia warlords, US military bases on the sovereign soil in many lands (Is any country’s soil “sacred?” Can people build a “mosque” blocks away from the sacred ground of zero, for example?)
If it is OK to bomb Libya’s presidential complex (this year) why was it not OK to bomb the NY office of the CIA (# 7 WTC)? Is it ever OK to bomb a civilian population?
And why not the WORLD TRADE center, and all that WORLD TRADE has done to so many in their countries, and now more obviously, to those in our own, all in the name of profit.
I admit to watching the recent film Inside Story (2010 Academy Award winner), and understanding VERY clearly why one would want to bomb Wall Street, for example. And I am a pacifist who loves NY City! But I could understand that very visceral feeling–Those G**damn F**KERS!!
A big hole–in our hearts, in our lives, in our understanding, in our lack of historical context.
A big hole in our city. The perfect memorial.
On that fateful day, I and my husband thought that a plane had trouble and was so far off course. How naive we were for a short time and then realized the worst, we had been attacked. Our lives have changed forever and more importantly, our children and grandchildrens lives. They will never have all the freedoms that we have enjoyed.
On 9/11 I was on the bus to Logan when the station attendant in Bath came out and told me to call home. My husband told me to get off the bus – I wasn’t flying anywhere. Normally I would have gone down to Boston the night before, stayed with my sister, and taken an early flight out … who knows why I changed my habits, but I am ever so thankful that I wasn’t flying that morning. No one else on the bus knew what was happening – they told them when they got to Portland where they had to wait for hours and hours before another bus could come take them back north again.
It was a gorgeous morning, so perfect with blue sky. I was living and working in Upstate NY. I worked in a doctor’s office and we had a TV on in the waiting room.
The receptionist called us all and I saw the 2nd plane hit. Everything just stopped, doctors,nurses, patients just were speechless and quiet. Then as the reports came in we realized how awful it truly was and some of us had family down in NYC. I will always remember the relief on faces when they got thru to their loved ones and lots of tears. Talk about day of infamy!!!
I remember I was at work and when the second plane hit and we all realized that this was an attack on America, and not an accident. I asked to leave to run an errand, and I went to the bank and drew out some money, and bought some canned food and other groceries, and gassed up my car, just in case…If more areas beyond NYC and Washington D.C. were attacked, I had decided I would go and get my kids at school, and drive to our camp at Moosehead Lake, which has very few people, and I hoped would be the safest place for my little family, until we knew exactly what was going on. I know for a long, long time, I felt we can never feel totally safe again…
Also, it was my oldest daughter’s birthday, and she and her dad were going to a concert that night, which of course was cancelled…It took a long time for her to feel it was okay to be happy and celebrate her birthday, and this year being the 10th anniversary, has brought those mixed feelings back for her. She lives near Boston, and I asked her not to be in the city on the 11th…
I remember all the signs that went up, in our windows and along the roadways that read “God Bless America”.
I wrote this poem a few weeks after the towers fell:
Endless Loop
So I keep hearing we’ll all keep hurting
The pictures we saw are the visions we’ll see
So far my dreams agree
That blue-sky smoke-stained action flick
Wind machines, the illusion of glass
A city snow scene in paper and bone
Crowds of extras and digital horror
The ultimate FX
An endless loop
Endlessly playing
The thing is
The thing is
We thought it was summer
We thought night would come – but later
We thought the earth turned and time flowed and we
Were still rocking gently in the rhythm of history
Buoyant and famously joyful
Which is why we thought
Those fluttering shapes
Against stone and fire
Swooping, not soaring
Just for a moment
Blinded by life and light
We thought they were birds
And I keep hearing
If you’re there, pick up
I’m scared
I love you
Pick up
Pick up
A thousand lights blinking in a city of
Empty rooms
Endless loop
Endlessly playing
As usual I was at the Camden Public Library. Elizabeth had the big screen on and I said,”What is going on?” It was a day like no other day that changed everyones’ life forever. We are still filled with sorrow for those lost, and appreciate life now every day and every moment.