I miss 9/12
Where were you on 9/11?
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Tomorrow is a very important day of remembrance for America. How can it possibly be twenty years since our nation took a direct hit from evil and lost so many innocent lives?
I love hearing stories other peoples’ stories of that day. Here’s mine:
It was a beautiful morning in Fairfax, VA, and it was my oldest’s first day of preschool (she’s 23 now). It was our family’s first experience with school, and we were all excited and nervous. As we walked our daughter to her classroom and said our goodbyes, another parent mentioned that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. At that time, eco-terrorists were doing a lot of crazy things, so I chalked it up to that. How wrong I was.
I went to the grocery store with my 15-month-old daughter to get things for that night’s dinner — and I got a call (on my Nokia!) from a friend who reported another plane had hit the WTC. We hurried back home for the beginning of days on end in front of the TV. When the plane hit the Pentagon, I was in disbelief. That was really close to home, and my brother-in-law and husband both worked nearby (both were fine, thankfully).
It was weird in the DC area that day and the days to come. When I went to pick up my daughter from preschool at noon that day, all of our local first responders were heading en masse, sirens wailing, toward the Pentagon. Overhead, the normally busy air traffic gradually disappeared. No one had any answers. We did the only thing that made sense: got Happy Meals for lunch.
The next day, 9/12, beautiful scenes unfolded around our neighborhood. Families gathered on street corners waving the American flag; drivers were polite to one another; free lemonade stands popped up everywhere; people flooded blood donation centers wanting to help. We were united in our grief and our patriotism. It was amazing. America at her best is unbeatable.
I do miss the spirit of 9/12.
What about you?
What’s your 9/11 story?
Your 9/12 story?
Please share in the comments! Meanwhile, here’s your meme dump for the day.
— Teri
PS — Thank you to everyone who showed up for our chat about Biden’s tyrannical vaccine mandate. Feel free to read it and add your comments here.
We had just made a BIG move to TN from Colorado, gotten married and welcomed my husbands 15 y/o daughter into our household. It was the MOST stressful year of my life and on 9/11 I was alone at our new house doing a final cleaning before moving in...I only had a radio and the news coming from it was really weird, very obscure and piecemeal. I knew something had happened but not where or how bug...I finally got concerned enough and drove to my MIL's house where everyone was gathered...total shock. My husband had beenan Intelligence Analyst in the Air Force and knew spot on what had happened and my brother was a higher up in the FAA (Auburn WA) and knew right away too. The silence in the small East TN town was deafening for the next week. This time was so unsettling and my husband considered rejoining the service and ended up joing the TSA (turned out to be a joke overall) and we made another move to Tampa. Shortly after this my mother passed...I am so concerned about the joker pretending to be our President and what's happening to our country and wish for the patriotism of 9/12/01. God bless America.
I was in my 2nd year of grad school at The George Washington University and living in a little apartment in Alexandria, VA, just a couple of miles from King Street Station. It was a reading day for me, so I didn't have to go into the District for class. I got up, made coffee, and brought it back to bed to do some reading (David Copperfield, which I have not read since). My husband was still asleep, but I remember what a beautiful day it was and that the windows were open. I remember hearing something that sounded like the dump truck backing into the apartment complex's Dumpster, which struck me as odd at the time, since it wasn't garbage day.
As I was sitting in bed, reading, my cell phone rang. (I hardly ever used it except for emergencies, since that was when roaming charges were a thing and for some reason, my apartment existed in some strange limbo, just far enough away from the right cell towers that I always got hit with roaming charges when I used it at home.) It was, weirdly enough, my mother in-law. I never got along with her, and couldn't imagine why she was calling me. I answered, because it was just strange enough that I didn't feel comfortable brushing her off (like I said: we never got along).
As soon as I answered, she said, "Don't go into DC today."
Okay, weird, but whatever. I told her it was a reading day for me and I never went into DC on reading days.
And that's when she said a bomb had gone off at the Pentagon. It wasn't a bomb, as we all know now, but in those early moments, apparently that's what people thought. (It occurred to me much, much later that what sounded so much like a garbage truck ramming a Dumpster was very likely a plane crashing. My apartment was less than five miles from the Pentagon. More like three, as the crow flies.)
I thought she was crazy. Or misinformed. Or... something.
I don't remember much about the conversation after that. She told me about the first plane hitting the Twin Towers, and I was still so certain she was wrong, somehow. My husband was awake by that point and heard just enough of my side of the conversation to grab the remote and turn on the TV.
I don't remember ending the call, but I remember very, very clearly knowing that I needed to call my mother right away. She answered on the first ring and almost immediately yelled to my grandfather that it was me and I was okay. She'd been trying to call me--she couldn't get through to my apartment's landline and--obviously, since I'd been on the phone with my mother in-law--she hadn't been able to get me on my cell phone. I remember how relieved she was.
As soon as I could, I called over to the University Writing Center, where I worked, and made sure everyone was okay there--at that point there were rumors that the State Department had been attacked, and the GWU campus was smack dab in the middle of downtown DC.
Mostly what I remember is how absolutely surreal everything felt. What was happening defied comprehension; it was too horrible, too... devastating on a grand scale--to be real.
I remember the sonic booms of F16 fighter jets flying overhead, and I remember being comforted by the sound. I remember watching the news as the death counts just kept going up. I remember all the amateur footage when the towers fell--people running, hiding in shops, under cars, wherever they could.
Afterward, I remember how quiet the metro ride was. I used to take the Blue Line from King Street Station to Foggy Bottom. Reagan Airport was deserted, but for the National Guard and K9 units. For a long time after, there was a moment of silence as we stopped at the Pentagon Metro stop (the train stopped, but nobody got on or off). I remember Humvees parked in the middle of I Street.
But I also remember we were all a little kinder to each other, a little more understanding. We seemed to have a little more patience and compassion for others. We were all in it together, after all. I wish that part could have lasted longer than it did.