September 11, 2001
I remember that late summer day was gorgeous. The sky was the bluest blue and the air was crisp. I had just turned 23 a few days before. I was working for a small gas company, CJ&S Oil Company. My wedding was planned for October 6. I went to work that morning like normal. I walked into my co-workers office and heard the DJ on the radio say there had been a plane that accidentally crashed into the World Trade Center in NY. I remember imagining it to be a small Cessna plane. I went back to my office where I turned on my radio and it was reported that it was a large passenger plane. There were only about 8 employees there at the time. All were older and they had all been employed there much longer that I had. I had a small 4 inch travel television and I lived close so my boss let me go home and get it and bring it back to work. I remember I drove home as fast as I could and put it on CNN as soon as I unlocked the door. I saw the images of the crash and it was not small. I remember standing there with my mouth hung open. I grabbed the travel t.v. and drove back to the office. I got it plugged in and turned on just in time to see he second plane hit. It was inexplicable at that moment. All of us huddled around this tiny television. I called my fiance and we shared what we had heard and saw. I don't believe that I can recall ever such a desperation to be at home as I did in that moment. I just wanted to go home, lock the doors, and watch the news. As the reports came in of other hijacked flights and terrorist attacks it became apparent that I was experiencing the biggest, most frightening moment of my life. We weren't allowed to leave early and I remember that 5pm could not come fast enough.
We totally emerged ourselves in watching the footage on the news. I remember crying, sobbing watching people jump to their death to escape the burning hell they were trapped in. Hearing the phone calls of people calling their loved ones from the hijacked planes and burning buildings. It was the most heart wrenching experience. The President cancelled all air traffic that night and I remember walking outside that night to let my dog out and I remember looking up at the stars thinking of all those souls that had entered heaven that day. There were no exhaust trails in the sky, no blinking red plane lights. It was an eerie feeling. A sight I have never experienced before and hope to never experience again. A night sky with no planes passing through.
I had been attending church regularly for months prior to this day and I know I prayed more deeply and desperately than ever before. We totally engulfed ourselves in the footage, the crushing stories, the final words and I love you's from the family members, reports of the magnitude of the loss of life.
Our wedding took place less than a month later. We honeymooned at Myrtle Beach. I remember sitting out on Pier 14 one night fishing and there was plane that came in extremely low to land at the nearby airstrip and I remember a panic came over us. Never before had a plane coming in for a landing been so frightening.
I was baptized that November. My Granny was able to attend both my wedding and baptism. My brother and his wife were expecting their first child. I didn't own a cell phone and I was not on facebook.
I do still live in the same house as back then. We produced a handsome son out of that marriage. My brother's daughter was born the next spring, healthy and beautiful as ever. My Granny, all of my husbands grandparents, and my dog (our first baby) Randy, have all since passed. My marriage ended and I no longer attend the church I had attended for all those years. I wish we could have back today a fraction of the patriotism felt in the days and weeks after the attack on our nation. It was spectacular all the flags being proudly hung on homes and businesses. The world and the capabilities of the sick people who live in it are more terrifying that ever and hardly anyone hung their flags out today. I feel so callused anymore. Back then I felt like I had my entire life ahead of me and though I should have did some things differently in the past few years, I'm extremely blessed and thankful I got to live it, unlike thousands of people that September day.
