I wrote this on the 10th anniversary, which have always been difficult for me, as you will read it was a day that hit way to close to home, sorry this is so long
When I look back on that infamous day I think back to the weekend before, my other half and I returned from a cruise, I had wanted to go out on deck and see the skyline as we arrived in the City, his reply was you have seen it 100s of times before, little did we both know that three days later it and our lives would be changed forever.
The experiences of September 11, 2001 changed my life forever. I lived all the way out Brooklyn and was working at 26 Broadway at the time, the same job but I had a real office On September 11, 2001.
My Express Bus was just left the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel when one of the passengers got a called a plane had crashed in to the Trade Center. Traffic as almost at a stand still but we were able to get out of the tunnel. When we were out of the tunnel we were able to see the Tower burning, the driver let us exit the bus, since he had no idea when traffic was going to start to move, there were people running in all directions.
I was about 3 blocks south of the WTC when the 2nd plane hit. I heard a massive explosion and felt the shards of glass and paper. Its funny that is the one of the few sounds I recall of that day, my memory has seemed to block all the sounds from that day out of my mind.
I was able to make it to my office about 2 blocks away. When I got there I started piece together what had occurred, we were essentially under terrorist attack. I sat at my desk unable to move for a long time. I called my loved ones to let them know I was OK. My husband who works for the Federal Gov. was on high alert, we was both to crazed and to busy at the time to even hear my story.
My boss, myself and our intern Danielle, all sat in out office on the corner of Broadway and Beaver and heard the implosion of the first tower and then say the clouds of black smoke that filled the air, about an hour later we heard the same again.
I spent much of that day on the phone with my Mom and my editor who lives in North Carolina and on line with a cousin when was in school up in Saratoga. We had power but no air conditioning, it had been shut down as not to bring in the debris. The other side west side of the street had no power at all.
We finally left the area at about 2 PM, it was a surreal ghostly site, and ash covered streets. One or two lone people walking aimsley a few Govt agents with jackets ID'ing them as to their agency and Police Offices very solemn doing the best they could to keep up the good fight.
We walked down Water Street to the Brooklyn Bridge, thinking we would walk over it and then end up at my bosses sons house. We were lucky that NYC was running buses over the Bridge, we got to the other side, and Danielle who lived down the street from me saw a bus that would get us close to home.
I was fine until I waked into my apt, then I started to cry and did not stop for the next week. I knew I would be home alone that night and called a friend to come stay with me, I knew that it would be very hard to spend the night alone. He slept on my living chair and I slept on the couch I did not want to be alone that night.
The Trade Center had always played a large part in my life, my Dad watched it being built, his office was right across the street, we celebrated my Parents 25th Anniversary at Windows on the World, at one point my DH worked at 6 WTC, one of the smaller buildings and when I worked on John street I would be there all the time, shopping either at Century 21 or at the many shops in the Towers themselves.
Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and start being positive what could go right.
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