What I remember about 9/11

Eleven years ago I was just getting back into the routine of life.  Todd has had survived near fatal pneumonia only 4 1/2 months before.  I had a c-section in July.  Only a few weeks before September 11th, we were back in the hospital after my six week old had contracted RSV.  I was now home adjusting to life after working, staying home with a newborn and (a soon to be diagnosed with Autism) almost 3 year old.   With all that had happened to our family so far in 2001, I was grateful to be alive and still have my loved ones close.

 That morning was crazy as usual.  When I look back now, the first thing I can remember was sitting in the living room and folding laundry.  JT must have been next to me and Garrett was playing in his room.  I was, for a little while, letting myself get lost in an episode of Little House on the Prairie on TBS.  It was the one where Albert and his friend accidentally set fire to the blind school and Mary's baby and Alice Garvey die in the fire.  I still even all these years later can hear Mary yelling, "My baby, where's my baby?"

As the two part episode continued into its second hour, I sat there so sad thinking about all those who had been lost and looking at my baby laying next to me.

Twenty minutes into the second episode, the news broke in with an emergency message.  At the time, I remember being so upset because I wanted to see how the episode ended.  It wasn't until the news reporter, started showing scenes of the towers that the sorrow that I had felt for Mary and Mr. Garvey was multiplied hundreds, thousands of times. 

I tried to call every one I knew.  My old co-workers filled me in on what I had missed.   Todd was in class at the vet school and the professors were not letting anyone out of class.  When he finally called to let me know he was safe, it was like a breath of fresh air.

When my calls were made and I knew everyone was safe.  I remember sitting there in agony knowing that there was nothing I could do for anyone on those planes, or anyone in that field.  I started to feel numb, so I got off the couch and walked outside onto our little deck.  It seemed so weird to me.  I was looking up at that Texas sky and it was the bluest blue I had ever seen.  There were no planes, no explosions.  In my world, I was safe.  In my world, there was peace.  Everything that was wrong was coming though that television.  The television screen was the only place that made the devastation real.  I wanted to turn the TV off, to turn off this movie that someone was showing.  But deep down inside I knew that it wasn't over, that the sadness that I had just seen was the real deal and that it would not be over anytime soon.

Years later, I finally tracked down a DVD of that episode of Little House on the Prairie and I finally saw how it ended.  Albert confessed that he and his friend had been smoking down stairs in the basement.   He was able to make amends and apologize to Mary and Mr. Garvey.  But for me and the people in my world, we will never hear the apologies of those terrorists who took away our "Adam, Jr.'s and Alice Garvey's."   We live knowing that even when we turn off the TV, the story doesn't end, the pain is still real. 

 

It's taken me eleven years now to sit and write my experience of that moment.  Does writing it out make it any easier to think about?  No, but  at least for now I know that each of us who suffered that day, whether from the loss of a friend or loved one, or for the innocence of our nation, that we can trust that we're not alone.