<p>What I remember most, aside from the horrific pictures and video, was how I felt when I woke up the next day. It felt as if the world had not only been forever changed, but ruined, and as if no one would ever be happy - just everyday, obliviously happy - again. I’d felt the same way when my father died many years before - that feeling of “if only it could be the way it was.” I was only an observer, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of grief for many days. </p>
<p>My respect for the heroes of that day, and their families, is profound.</p>
<p>Were commercials being aired during the first hours of televised coverage of the attacks? Funny how I can’t remember there being commercial interruptions during the initial reporting. It seemed that CNN began wall to wall coverage from the time the first plane hit, and certainly after it became obvious that we were under attack. From then on, I went into a kind of shock, an almost out-of-body state of cognitive dissonance, so perhaps the ads just drifted right over my head.</p>
<p>I remember going to pick up the kids (8 and 6) at school thinking about how everyone I knew who was old enough to remember Pearl Harbor has clear remembrances of that day. People who had no other connection in the course of their lives are connected by their common memory of that day. And they passed those memories down to their children and grandchildren. It’s a scar they all seem to remember how they got. </p>
<p>And I thought - this is my kid’s Pearl Harbor. They will tell this story to their grandchildren. It just made me so damn mad. </p>
<p>The following summer we were actually at the Pearl Harbor memorial, and watching the videos in the presentation was chilling - I had seen them in high school, but now I was seeing them as someone who had lived in the time of a similar sort of event and they meant something else.</p>
<p>It was one of the most terrifying days of my life because that morning I was in the hospital ready to undergo another cancer related surgery. I had a terrible feeling that I could not describe and I told my husband that I was not scared about the surgery but that something was making me very nervous. My husband worked in the North tower and that day he was with me in the hospital. When the doctor came in to see me he asked why I was crying and said “you have been through so much…Why are you so nervous now?” He really could not understand that after all the surgury I had I was visably shaken. This was not my personality to be so visably upset and this caused my doctor to push me into telling him what I felt. I remember saying that I felt “like something bad was about to happen…and it had nothing to do with my surgery,” Later that day, my doctor was by by bed and he was the first to tell me what had happened. He looked so shocked and so upset and said to me “you sensed something…What was it that you felt?” </p>
<p>My husband may be alive today because I had surgery that day. My sister in law was not in her office, that would have been a direct hit, because she was at home bringing my kids to school. That one event…my surgery may have been the most important life changing event that I have ever been apart of. My sister in law would have died that day and my husband surely would have been among those who either made it out or died that day. </p>
<p>My sister in law lost all of her co workers and many friends who she she knew that worked in the towers. My husband lost two friends. So on September 11th I watch the memorial and as all the names are called I listen to all of those we either know directly or indirectly and I understand how fortunate my entire family was that day. My brother has his wife and his children have their mother. My children have their dad. </p>
<p>When I count the blessings in my life I realize how very blessed my family has been for such a long long time. On this anniversary of September 11th, it will be also another anniversary of survival, and I thank God that my surgery was that day. Each year since 9/11 either I or my doctor call each other. I don’t know how he was able to perform surgery when in the operating room… he knew what was going on. Bless him…</p>
<p>That’s incredible, momma-three. How lucky your H and SIL are. Maybe some people can sense what’s coming sometime, though hard to explain scientifically.</p>
<p>Wow, momma-three, your story sent chills right through me! Who would ever think there’d be reason to be thankful for cancer or the need for cancer surgery, yet surly, they directly served to spare you and your loved ones tremendous pain and loss. The fact that you experienced a strong premonition of the impending disaster on that day, and knew it had nothing to do with your surgery, is amazing also. Had anything like this ever happened to you before? Btw, I’m very glad you’re still with us, despite your brush with cancer, and that your H and SIL are too. Life certainly is a mystery, isn’t it?</p>
<p>I wish I could explain it…it has been with me for a long time. My kids have always known it, as has my husband. It is a feeling that just comes over me. I don’t know how or what will happen just that something is going to happen. That morning was so strange though…the feeling was so strong and my husband really believed that my feelings were the result of the surgery. He thought that I was trying to warn him that I was not going to make it. My doctor told me he has seen this before, and he said he went into surgery that morning very concerned because he too thought that maybe I had a premonition of not making it through the surgery. </p>
<p>There have been other times things similar to this have happened, but nothing with the large life changing events of 9/11. My surgery saved at least one life that day and maybe two. It is so weird to know that had I not had cancer they both would have been at work that day and with out a doubt my sister in law would have been killed. </p>
<p>The impact of 9/11 on both my husband and my sister in law is another story altogether. My sister in law on the very fast track left work three years later and has become very religious. She went from high paid business woman to stay at home mom who sits on many boards of charities…one being associated with 9/11. My husband who was not there found it almost impossible to continue working in the city. He lost his job within two years of being relocated to a new building. My husband still shows the effects of trauma…he worries about my son traveling the tunnel into the city. Each morning my son texts him to let him know he has arrived at work. The kids understand.</p>
<p>^Yes, we are very grateful!!! It is the first time I have told the events of 9/11 in a public way. I assume at this point that most people who know me in real life probably have my identity figured out by now. Yes, we were all very lucky and who would have guessed that cancer saved the lives of two people I love. I am sure there are some other people who should have been in the towers that day who werent because of something they had to do. We know someone who worked at Cantor who was at her father’s funeral. Had her father not died she would have died that day. That is just one other person…I am sure there are others.</p>
<p>I don’t think people who live far from the New York area could possibly be effected in the same way as New York/New Jersey folks. There were so many lost in my town…my children’s friends lost a parent or grandparent, uncles, aunts. The memorial services were devastating…pictures of the deceased and nothing to bury. You just don’t live the same way after such an event. This will be the first anniversary since 9/11 that the families know that the master mind is gone. Sadly, there are so many others, and America will never be the same.</p>
<p>I just read an article in Washingtonian Magazine about the day BEFORE 9/11 (the story ends on the morning of 9/11). One of the profiles was, sadly, the opposite of the ones like yours that could have been horrible but due to a twist of fate weren’t. This individual was supposed to be on a flight to a conference on the West Coast; due to some flight snafu, she was not able to board that plane. She called her husband who told her just to come home. Instead, she made other arrangements and called her husband to happily let him know that she was able to re-book on American flight 77, which was the flight that later crashed into the Pentagon.</p>
<p>Both this type of story and momma-threes just give me chills.</p>
<p>momma-three, just wow. amazing that your need for surgery saved lives.</p>
<p>I had a dental appointment that A.M., and called to cancel. The secretary asked me to come right over–dentist’s DD was in second tower. I didn’t leave there until we got news that she was safe. The worm knew 2 girls who lost a parent. I think he really got it when the dad who was in our carpool spoke about leaving his hotel room to get a coffee. Everything he had in room was crushed. A former patient called that evening to talk about her survival and walking home without shoes. A woman on my medical chat room lost her husband.My G/F has a phobia about heights, and so her husband’s firm chose an office on lower floor. Such randomness about survival.</p>
<p>That day will remain in my thoughts forever. I get teary just watching the shows. I have a current client who was part of he rescue team, and the grief is still acute. </p>
<p>I know we cannot control the floods and drought, but I hope such man-made attacks would cease.</p>
<p>I think you’re right. 9/11 touched me but lightly in a personal sense. A close friend was devastated because she worked long-distance with the people of Cantor Fitzgerald; talked to them every day. But I didn’t know anyone in NY, DC or PA, much less in the affected places. It made it hard for me to understand the sense of desolation and grief that I felt. But I won’t insult you by saying it was anything like what you went through. I can’t imagine.</p>
<p>Out here on the west coast, we watched early-morning TV, horrified. I had to gather my thoughts quickly, even as events were unfolding, because I had to do my best to explain to D as I took her to school. I had errands to run that day, and Sacramento was like a ghost town. The bank was empty of customers and every employee was gathered around the TV; the teller who pulled herself away to help me was weeping. There were maybe 5 customers in Target, and they had all been drawn to the electronics section to watch, as I was. There was a hush everywhere I went that day and, that night, impromptu neighborhood candlelight vigils all over town. From 3000 miles away, there wasn’t much we could do, but we wanted to let you know that we were with you in spirit.</p>
<p>I come from the New York area and have lived in the DC area for the past 14 years.</p>
<p>9/11 was the day that we learned that we have targets on our backs. I suppose that we always knew, but that was the was the day it became real.</p>
<p>My daughter was in middle school at the time, and students were kept in whatever class they happened to be in after the news reached the school. Individual teachers had to cope with the situation as they saw fit, but they couldn’t hide the fact that something was going on because the school abandoned its normal schedule. The teacher who was with my daughter’s group was a first-year teacher who felt totally unprepared to handle the situation. As he said to the parents at back-to-school night a couple of weeks later, “I’m just a kid, too. I’m 24 years old, and this was an event that everyone will remember forever. How do you deal with that?” He doesn’t teach any more.</p>
<p>I was at work. It was a sunny day. No clouds. I’d just come back from getting my coffee and one of my employees (a recreational pilot) commented that a plane just flew into the WWTC. He showed us the photo on CNN.com. I rememberr saying it had to be a small plane, since the airspace would not allow large planes. We pondered on that and I went into my office.</p>
<p>A few moments later, it was comfirmed that it was a commercial jet. Since it was early, people were still arriving for work, so we were getting more info. At this point, I’m sure our internet bandwidth spiked. We also had TVs in our conference rooms so people started filing in to watch the news. Shock was an understatement.</p>
<p>I was sitting in my office and looked out the window. My office looks over to Windsor,Ontario. I watched a plane over Canada do a U-turn. US airspace had been closed. We sat there wondering was a plane going fly into the Renaissance Towers…</p>
<p>My husband is a police officer. He had been working midnights. He called and said he got home, went to sleep and then got a phone call. The police force had been mobilized and he had to turn around and go right back to work. I told him to turn on the TV.</p>
<p>Around 11AM, we were told we had to evacuate the building. It seems the entire downtown Detroit was being evacuated. It took me 30 minutes just to get out of the parking structure. I realized if anything were to happen we all were sitting ducks.</p>
<p>After I left, I went to pick up my 11 yo child. The children had been told something had happened, but the school pretty much left it up to the parents to explain what had happened. I picked her up, explained what had happened on the way to the grocery store (in the event we had to hunker down).</p>
<p>We went home watched the TV and played with the puppy I had just picked up the day before.</p>
<p>I remember just looking up in the sky and not seeing any airplanes for days.</p>
<p>“This is the Peal Harbor of our generation”.</p>
<p>After the priest said this at our friend’s funeral (he worked for Cantor), my husband lost it. The day of the funeral was also his (my husband’s) birthday, probably one of the more depressing birthdays ever. </p>
<p>I think those of us who were in NYC on 9/11 have vivid memories of the day. I can remember what I was wearing that day, the fruit salad I picked at for lunch and can recount almost minute-by-minute from 8:48am until I eventually got home just after 4pm. What took me weeks to get out of my head were the sirens that screamed down 23rd street as emergency crews went to/from the scene. My husband was at his desk and felt both towers fall - I was walking down Park Avenue (away from the Grand Central area, remember not all planes were accounted for) and did not feel either. </p>
<p>We are both EMTs, so I decided by 1pm we should volunteer our skills at the hospitals on 1st Avenue. The first few turned us away, however at Bellvue, we spoke with the ER doctor who looked at me and said ‘we have no patients’. That sent a chill through my body. </p>
<p>Even though our house is 12+ miles from lower Manhattan, the following few days we could smell the burning coming from the site. It was odd not to hear planes for days, as we are on the flight path to Newark airport and planes are part of our background noise.</p>
<p>nj2011mom: we were also under the flight path to Newark, although a little farther away. I don’t think I’ve shared it on here, but I’m almost positive that the 2nd plane flew directly over me on it’s way to the 2nd tower. I remember at the time, when I still thought that the 1st plane that hit was a Piper Cub, that it was so odd that a jet would be flying that fast & that low on the way to Newark. When you live under a flight pattern, you just subconsciously “know” what a normal flight looks & sounds like. And this one was off in a big way. I still didn’t connect things until the next day when watching coverage on CNN & they were talking about the flight paths that all the planes had taken. I remember my blood running cold when I saw the flight path for that one flight. Right over Middlesex County. And the timing was exactly right. When the 9/11 commission report came out I ran out & bought it specifically to read up on that flight. </p>
<p>DH’s office was in Jersey City right across the river. He wasn’t in the office that day, but since the cafeteria & some offices overlooked the river a number of his colleagues saw the first plane hit. Everyone saw the second one hit since they were gathered watching the first one. Something I don’t know if out of area people know: many people saw the 2nd plane heading for the 2nd tower for a minute or so & knew what was going to happen & felt helpless to stop it. And then of course everyone knew what the real gig was. It wasn’t an accident or someone having a heart attack while flying. </p>
<p>One thing I didn’t realize until a couple of years later: not everyone got to see the raw footage that the NYC station viewers did. It makes sense of course, others got edited feed because it wasn’t a local story. I was talking with a TN friend & mentioned how watching the people jump from the top of the Towers was the thing that made me absolutely break down in horror and she had no idea. </p>
<p>My DH is a pretty stoic guy. He couldn’t get into work for about a week because of road closures and I remember his first day back, he walked in the house and went & poured himself a big strong drink. Not his usual routine at all. It was awful. Visually it was disconcerting, the smoke was still smoldering (that took a long time to go away) but the smell was what really got to him.</p>