Thursday, September 11, 2014

Remembering 9-11


I'm just home from work and I took a stroll down the hill to pay my respects to the  Pentagon and remember all those that died that day, in Arlington, New York and Pennsylvania.


In my world, on 9-11, the conversations always turns to "where were you on that day". I imagine it does in other cities and countries around the world.

I'll tell you my story.  It was not my personal tragedy but it had a profound impact on our country and our vision of ourselves as invincible.  It lodged a ball of fear in my heart I am slowly breaking through.

Tony and I had just closed on this house on September 10th. It was a lengthy, messy closing, with his name misspelled on every page.

After hours of initializing every mistake and sitting through all the other trauma that makes home buying so stressful, we  stumbled out of the lawyers office about 9:00pm.

Starving and already sick to death of the house we decided to skip our own home inspection in favor of food and sleep.

The next morning was a perfect blue skies, sunny day. We agreed to go check out the new house after work. I was watching the Today Show at home when the first tower was hit. It was Lauer And Courig hosting, they didn't know what was happening. Those were the days of innocence. I left for work, none the wiser.

I was at the flower shop, in the basement, when our driver came running in and told us to turn on the TV.

We did, and time seemed to stop. The second tower had just been hit. I called the shop owners who were vacationing on Nantucket and urged them to find a TV.  By the time the call was over, Flight 77 had hit the Pentagon.

I called Nantucket again and told them we were going to close the shop. but yet we stayed together for several more hours, underground in what we call the hell hole. We felt safe there, together.

When I walked out of the shop, it was eerily quiet. No cars, so planes overhead, no cell phone ringing, our world had shut down.  It was still a beautiful day but now the very air seemed filled with fear.  What next, everyone wondered.

There was a steady parade of silent suit clad people walking down Lee Highway in Arlington, trying to get home. The carried the jackets, briefcases and silent phones. It was like a long, funeral procession.

Highways were closed. bridges were closed, Starbucks was closed.

I went home with several friends from the shop, we sat outside at the table, everyone making frantic phone calls that went nowhere.

I felt selfish wondering to myself if our house was even standing. It turned out to have been in the flight path but the only thing that was down was an old diseased maple tree in the back yard.  All its branches fell off and buried themselves in the ground.

When our street was finally opened to traffic, several days later, we walked around the tree in silence, wondering about all the holes in the ground around it and where they could have come from.

For weeks after, as we worked on the house, there was a steady stream of  military Humvees driving past and people from every state, parking on our street, to walk to the hill that now holds the Air Force Memorial, carrying armfuls of flowers and photos to honor the dead.

In 2002, I planted white cottage yarrow to commemorate that day. It's still blooming.

Every year we do a grave blanket for the widow of the Captain on Flight 77, who died along with all his passengers when the crashed into the Pentagon. I spoke to her on Tuesday.

She told me it never gets easier. I told her we will never forget.








22 comments:

  1. Every year on 9-11, fear and grief set in my heart. The first year after 9-11, I was so afraid and distressed I couldn't even go to work. That day brought back memories of the Tet offensive in Vietnam when I was 7 years old. I was in a small village visiting my grandparents when it happened. Our village was the very first one to be attacked. We had to run to a bomb shelter. On our way, I witnessed bloody bodies all over the streets, people screaming and crying, and burning houses everywhere. I can still see those images today. I am very blessed to be alive today. I am thankful for each and every day I am alive and for all my family and friends. I always try to live every day as if it's my last day on earth. I have been very blessed.

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    1. Yes you have Christa, and I think you share that sense of blessing with everyone around you.

      I'm thankful you made it through the horrors.

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  2. I've never been so scared or sad as I was on that day. I have such a hard time comprehending how human beings can be so cruel. When? When will all the hating in the world just stop?

    I went to my in-laws that morning. They live down the block from SAC Air Force Base and we saw Air Force 1 fly over. It was a little scary.

    Thank you for sharing your story. xo

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    1. I also wonder about the hatred and cruelty of some humans. And their ability to prey on the weak and needy to convince them to join in the horrors.

      Politics, religion and greed make for a poisonous stew.

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  3. The morning of 9-11 as we were boarding a bus for a tour of the San Juan diversion project in a remote corner of NW New Mexico we heard that a plane had hit the first tower. We all assumed it was an accident. As we traveled outside of cell phone range, we stopped several times to see if there were updates, and the news grew ever more grave...

    It strikes me how insulated Americans really were to the violence in our world. Not anymore.

    Thanks for reminding us of our vulnerability but also how very blessed we are to still live in a safer place than most of the world.

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    1. You were all very brave to carry on with your tour, I would have been so anxious I would have insisted on returning to the imaginary safety of my own home.

      And yes, still safer, but a definite shove out of paradise.

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  4. What a beautiful, moving post and tribute. I'm glad to hear your story. Every moment of that day is burned into me.

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  5. This is a beautiful tribute, Jane. I hadn't realized things were so close to home for you. :o( My father-in-law worked at the Pentagon at the end of his Marine career back in the 70's.

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    1. Thank you Deb, I didn't know if it was appropriate for me to write this, I had no role in the tragedy, but I try and listen to the story writing itself over and over in my head.

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  6. I always forget how close you live to the Pentagon. Like Jen, I remember that day hour by hour. I was watching Matt and Katie too when the first plane hit. I thought they were talking about a private two engine. I think back at her deer in the headlights look and realize she was probably thinking about her children at school in the city. I dutifully left to keep a hair appointment and found the salon closed. Back home to sit riveted in front of the tv. No, we won't ever forget.

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    1. All those hours of watching the planes fly into the towers, over and over again. As if this time it might begin to make sense to us or we could change the outcome.

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  7. Knew you lived very close, but had not really thought about what that must mean for you. So much more personal.

    We listened non-stop to NPR and eventually closed early. Since we were right next door to the Fed. Appeals Court, we planned an emergency evacuation route ... just in case. We were all so innocent then.

    Hard to realize it's been 13 years.

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  8. My husband stood across the street as the second plane hit, he turned and ran as fast as he could, I listened on the radio in my office in midtown and when the towers came down I certainly thought he had been crushed. An hour later he stood at my office door with tears streaming down his face. I never talk about it.

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    1. Oh my gosh Amelia, that's an incredible experience. You both were blessed! You guys have to write your story down.

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  9. Oh dear God Amelia, I just came from work and read this. I think ,my heart stopped for a moment.

    Frank is blessed. Thank you for sharing this story. We never have to talk about it if you don't want to. But it's another story I'll never forget.
    xo

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    1. Here's my favorite story. There was a man who rode the train with us every morning, he was blind and had a beautiful yellow lab guide dog named Napoleon, he sat next to me a couple of times and Napoleon gave me a little nudge, I guess he was being protective. Sometimes I helped guide them both on to the PATH train. On the first year anniversary of 9-11 PBS had a special and interviewed people who were in the building; all of a sudden there he was (we didn't know he worked in the towers, conversation never went beyond pleasantries) and here was his story. He worked on the 37th floor, I think can't recall which tower, and Napoleon started to lead him towards the stairs, once there a woman was coming down, she was terrified because the stairs were full of black smoke. She said to him, "I can't see" and he said "neither can I but he can" and he led them down the stairs to safety. I turned the TV off, after all the horror the last story I ever wanted to hear about 9-11 was going to be positive

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  10. (((((Jane, Amelia and all who were so closely or personally affected.)))) My ex-husband, father of my only son, was an American Airlines Senior Captain pilot at the time; luckily for my son, his stepmother and his two half-brothers, my Ex was on vacation that day. I'm sure our country abounds with close call stories like that. Thank you , Jane for this moving, beautiful & highly appropriate memorial post.
    Peace be with you, Mizz Jane
    and with us all,
    Diane in D

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  11. Oh, Jane. It was a day....it still feels so very recent.......my daughter was just a freshman in college, four long hours away. We had just gotten cell phones the month before. It was very scary to be apart. Then a Great Grampa suddenly passed away. Then our beloved Golden Retriever, Libby, fell to land in the arms of the angels. It was sad and awful times and all we wanted was to be together and to be alright. Yesterday one of my 5 year old Kindergartners told me she saw the scarey double towers on TV last week.....our lives were altered forever.....

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  12. I can still remember the day that those plains crashed into the twin towers and the Pentagon. Such a horrible thing to have happened. I think we will never forget, as long as we live.

    Madelief x

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