It's been 9 years since the attacks on the world trade center and it's crazy to think it was so long ago. Though my memories of that day have faded some, I still remember quite a bit.
My roommate Kirsten turned on the radio as she always did while doing her make-up. It was strange that the music station wasn't playing music and it wasn't commercials. There was some agitated talking. We heard something about a plane crashing into a building and I remember not really understanding what was going on. I was only 19 and really didn't know much about the world outside my comfortable life as a college student. We started to understand that 2 planes had crashed into the world trade center towers and that it likely wasn't an accident. While we were listening a plane also crashed into the Pentagon. I called my brother Mike to find out who had such hatred for the US to do this and it was the first time I remember hearing the name Osama Bin Laden. How naive I was at such an age, thinking no one really had such hatred towards America and Americans. I had no idea about world affairs. I wanted to know it was real and since I did not have a TV in my apartment at college I knocked on peoples doors until I could find a TV so I could see what was happening. It was one of the most surreal things I have ever seen, it seemed to tear at my soul. I had always felt so safe as an American. People weren't dumb enough to attack America any more, right?
My first class of the day was a religion class (I was at BYU-Idaho) and my professor just turned on the news in the class as we sat silently watching. I still remember exactly how I felt and what a scary thing it was to feel like my safety was gone. He turned it off and we read from the Book of Mormon about wars in those times. I can't remember anything that we read but I know that there was some peace in something we read (in fact I probably have it marked, I should find that).
There was a TV in the lounge at my apartment and I watched it constantly for a few days, still shocked and trying to make sense of it all. It felt like the last days. A neighbor of mine had a family member in one of the towers and I remember she could not get through on the phone to anyone to find out if he was okay.
Sometimes I feel like we forget that day. For the first few months afterward it felt like our nation was united. It didn't matter what political party you were affiliated with, or how you felt about abortion, we knew that Americans had been murdered in a political move by al-Qaeda. Our hearts were broken and we felt the weight of the tragedy universally.
Do you still remember?
1 comment:
You know Jill.. .I had fallen asleep on the couch the night before at my parents house. I was home from College to go on my mission. I awoke to a phone call from my brother in law that just said turn on your TV. I could not believe that I was seeing what I was seeing. The horror that came over me the next few days as I watched was tough. I was similar in thought to you... didn't understand hatred at that level. I stayed with my sister for a few days so I could be with someone and talk out what was happening. I took it really hard. I wanted to watch every minute of news coverage... (probably not the best idea, but it was all i knew to do. I learned that I was not home to go on a mission, but to have time to cope. I don't think I could have handled that time without the support of my family. God really blessed me to have had me home at that time....
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