Mental & Emotional Health

Six years ago today, the nation witnessed the worst attack on American soil to date. Still, nothing man-made has created such a stir in America. (I have to say man-made as I believe that Hurricane Katrina ultimately damaged America more than 9/11.) Like the lunar landing, the Kennedy assassination, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the OJ Simpson freeway chase, I bet every one of my readers remembers exactly where he or she was at the moment they heard about planes crashing on the East coast.

Want to know my story?

I was in Yelm, Washington; at my grandmother’s house. I used to spend summers with her as a sort of mini-vacation. (It was always hard work though, she took me on her delivery routes and I would help out). I would take the train up to her house from Eugene and then take it home. I was supposed to go home on 9/11. I had just made oatmeal and sat down on the couch to watch the news. Even at 19 I started my day watching the news. Nothing BUT plane crash coverage was on, and very clearly in my mind I still see the footage of the second plane slamming into 2 World Trade Center. My immediate thought was of my boyfriend’s parents who were in New York at the time. I was suddenly VERY scared for them and couldn’t take my eyes off the television screen. My boyfriend was in Thailand and scheduled to come home on the 14th - I was worried they weren’t going to let him come home. My oatmeal was cold, congealed and inedible by the time I dragged my eyes away from the screen to eat. I didn’t eat it.

I still hadn’t cried, and still was in shock, until I got in the shower. I sat on the shower floor and bawled. I bawled because I was scared for Russ & Gwen. I bawled because I missed my boyfriend and this was going to mean he couldn’t come home as soon. I bawled for the families who had lost someone. I bawled because I wanted to be near my own parents right then. Very few people know that I was also scared for my own life at this point. I was an hour and a half south of Seattle. What would happen if the West coast were to be next? Would they go for a very tall building (The Space Needle)? Would I be stuck at my grandmother’s house because I couldn’t get home?

When I got out of the shower, my grandmother was on the phone with my parents. Instead of sending me home on the Amtrak, they decided that Grams would drive me to Portland and Dad would pick me up there and take me home to Roseburg. I had never been so thrilled to see my dad though, there was just something about the entire day that made me want to hug my parents. I later found out that Gwen & Russ were in upstate New York, and my boyfriend had been being teased by the Thai about the entire event! He refused a massage from one woman on the beach and she told him that Osama was going to fly a plane into his house next because he refused. *shakes her head*

Thankfully I didn’t know anyone who was in the towers or near the area when the tragedy occurred, but I have I have friends whose family members WORKED at 1 and 2 WTC. The feeling of being so scared but being so proud of being an American was such a juxtaposition in my head. While it feels more natural now, I hope to never feel it so strongly again.

So, I spent some time asking for and gathering personal stories of others who remember the devastation six years ago today. Feel free to leave your own memories in the comments.

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MamaCeeta emailed me to tell me: “I was lying in bed between my husband and my 11 day old baby. I was that inbetween stage of sleep and awake where nothing seems real. I heard the radio talking about a plane flying into the WTC. I thought that I was having a really bad dream. As I slowly woke up, I realized that the radio was NOT a dream. I woke up my husband and we turned on the TV shortly after the second plane hit. We sat glued to the TV for the rest of the day and cried.”
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Katie of Cup o’Katie wrote: “September 11th, 2007 was a Tuesday morning. I was home for the summer after my freshman year of college. As my mom left for work, I poured myself the last cup of coffee, walked into the living room and turned on the TV. Everything in the room suddenly seemed to fade into grey except for the images on the television. Even the voices of the newscasters seemed to evaporate into thin air. I stood in the living room frozen like a statue holding my cup of coffee, mouth agape for what felt like an eternity. There it was, the World Trade Center, filmed from every angle, being run through by a Boeing. People were running, screaming, crying, thousands of pounds of steel and glass collapsed to the ground and all I could do was stand and stare. War coverage in 2007 excites little more than indifference, but six years ago the streaming news coverage demanded my attention. An attack on American soil demanded everyone’s attention. It felt unreal.

Although I had read about the Vietnam War and had faint memories of the Gulf War, they seemed removed and from my life. America was untouchable. On September 11th, this country had not only been touched by war, it had been sucker punched in the dark. I have never before, or since, felt such a swell of patriotism for those who had died, for those unsure of their loved ones safety, for families who had lost someone, for the men and women who would be going to war as a result of that day’s events, and for the country that had seemed so impervious to all of the violence in the world. I didn’t need to wave a flag or pledge my allegiance. I remained standing, no longer frozen by shock, but now standing for the Americans that could not.”
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Diana, of Somebody Heal Me, a regularly updated migraine blog remembers: “I was thinking about this earlier because six years later, I’m back at the law school again, which is where I was that day.

I was heading into Commercial Transactions class when we all heard the news. Professor Meyer walked to the front of the room, uncharacteristically late, and choked up as he started to talk about what happened. His daughter’s roommate was killed in the Lockerbie hijacking, and what we already knew about the attack that day brought him instantly back to that horrible time in his life. He cried a little, and we all sat there in shock.

All I could think was that I wanted to get home and be with my husband. I felt so scared and alone.

I remember feeling so close to everyone in this entire country that day and in the aftermath. It was a horrible thing, but I felt proud of how we reacted and banded together.”
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Jen of Tales From The Shoebox writes: “I was home on break from college and I was moving into my first apartment that day. The phone woke me and I tried going back to sleep, but my mother started shaking my foot. “Jenni Jenni turn on the TV, Kara says we’re going to war!” “Don’t be stupid, Mom, why would we be going to war?” I did wind up moving into my apartment, all the while wondering about my family in NYC, some of whom worked in in the WTC. Turns out my mom’s cousin was supposed to have a meeting there that morning but the guy canceled because his kid was sick, so Steven stayed home.”
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Christina left me an somewhat positive memory from the day: “I was at my desk at work when we learned of the first crash. We have a tv in the kitchen so we were all gathered around. I was praying it was an accident and the plane was empty. Of course that wasnt the case. In the same instant of this thought a co-worker started yelling somthing about his son. He worked in one of the two towers on the 81st floor. That was it, we never returned to our desks everyone just stuck together in the kitchen the rest of the day. John and his wife left right away to get to NY, and called with updates he had reached him but he was still trapped inside. In the end not only did John Jr survive, he and his co-worker carried a woman in a wheelchair down those 81 flights of stairs to saftey. The next few weeks we all gathered over and over again to watch his interviews on tv, telling of the story and always that it was doing the right thing, who would pass up a disabled person in a burning building and espicially when the elevators are out. He still dosent consider himself a hero, but we do!
Im happy to have this memory to recall on such a hard day. It was very painful and knowing a family who was directly affected was very hard, but it helps me to remember that those who lived and those who were lost are all heros!”
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Aprill, of Her Daily News and Life As A Christian Woman offered her story to me through the 451Press forums (as well as sharing things on both of her blogs): “I was getting my hair cut when I first heard about the plane hitting the World Trade Center. By the time I got to work, the second plane had hit and the words “terrorist attack” were being tentatively spoken. I was terrified, and the whole office was riveted to the radio. I was managing a clinical psychologist’s office, and soon the phone was ringing off the hook. Not from patients trying to come in, really, but they just wanted to know we were there. We were the ones they turned to with their problems, and they sought reassurance that we were still around, I guess. That evening I went to church. There were hundreds of us gathered there, nobody really knowing what to do except pray and hug. I live adjacent to a major Army flight training base, and we all knew the implications of the attack. All the military members were called to the base, and their families wandered into the church terrified at what it meant. For several days, the church was full every morning and evening with people just wanting to be near God, and someone else, whether we knew those people or not. It was true — a lot of people who had never given any thought to church started coming every Sunday.”

Master of Irony sent me this late this afternoon: “My biggest memory is that blue, blue sky and no planes in it. I never realized until that day how much we see planes, helicopters, and the trails of planes. I never realized the noise they make that we take for granted. To this day I think of 9/11 almost every time a plane flies over me in a clear blue sky.

I think that is the profound memory for me because the rest of it happened in mass chaos for me. I was in Walgreen’s when the first plane hit but missed their radio saying anything as I walked out and I had a CD on in my car. I got to work and everyone wanted details; I knew nothing. I was working at that time in a basement that was like a bombshelter; we were safe I guess, but we couldn’t get a radio or TV to work at all. The only time we could get information was as we went up and down to the patient’s rooms and passed TVs. Rumors were flying and it was impossible to sort them out when we only could watch for a couple minutes at a time. I was sitting at a nursing station when the 2nd tower fell and I watched that, a moment I’ll never forget, partly because it happened to be the area where the sickest patients were and nobody else was around that had any idea what they were seeing, so I was alone in that horror for several minutes.

Later that day I did home health and that blue, blue sky imprinted itself on my mind forever.

The other thing I’ll never forget was Congress singing that night. For whatever reason that struck me as special.”

mental & emotional health, memories, September 11th, 9/11, 9/11/2001, September 11 2001, World Trade Center, New York City, American tragedy, personal stories