Remembering 9/11

My sadness still lingers from September 11, 2001, even ten years later. I know so many lost fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters and friends. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to lose someone I cared about on that day and in that way.

My heart and prayers go out to all of you who lost someone that tragic day. This essay is my condolence and my love letter to you. 
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I didn’t know a single person in New York, Washington DC, or aboard United Flight 93.

Regardless, everyone remembers where they were that day. I was twenty-two, in my last year of college. I spent the early morning trying to fix my schedule in the dean’s office. I was trying to convince the dean to let me drop a class, even though the deadline was a week prior. I argued my case and she relented. As I walked to the front of the office suite, the receptionist said something to me about a plane crashing into a building in Manhattan. I stopped to watch the tiny television near her desk. The news anchor thought it was a small plane and it was a mistake. I shrugged my shoulders at her, said goodbye. As I walked across the college lawn to the student union coffee shop, I didn't even think about the crash. I was thinking about my morning latte. 

I bought my drink and went to the long wall of televisions outside the coffee shop. The televisions were normally tuned to MTV or a sports channel, but this morning it was only news. It was eerily quiet in the building, save for the soft and constant murmur of other students hovered around the tvs. I stood with them, watching the smoke from the first tower, waiting to hear what had really happened. The reporter said it was a passenger plane, and they showed live footage of it flying into the north tower of the World Trade Center, taken by a tourist.

We stood and speculated, watching the smoke. All of a sudden a second plane came into view on the screen and hit the South Tower, pieces of the building flying out from its side like an explosion. Someone behind me screamed.

The reports continued to come in. It wasn’t a mistake. Both planes had meant to crash. More students gathered around the televisions. Picture after picture of fire and smoke and ash flashed before me; the captions along the bottom of the screen saying the same things over and over: Two planes. One at 8:46 a.m. in the North Tower. One at 9:03 a.m. in the South Tower. 

I looked around at the faces behind me, beside me. To my right, a young man who I had dated on and off the previous year, stood quietly watching the televisions. I called out his name. He met my gaze and reached out, put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close.

The ticker across the bottom of the screens now changed: Another plane in Washington. Another in Pennsylvania. Suspected terrorist attack. The student union was now overflowing with people, all of us standing and watching, some with our mouths agape, some calling friends or family, some crying, some beyond reproach. But we were all asking the same question over and over: Why?

The stations had zoomed in on people jumping from the burning towers in New York. At first it looked like empty clothes being tossed from the windows – a blue suit, a green dress, a black coat – then we saw them - the arms, the legs, the faces. A man and a woman jumped, hand in hand, floating in the air, her red hair flying behind her, fire against the clear blue sky. One by one they went, some hovering on the edges of the building, some leaning out the windows in agony.

At 9:59 a.m. the South Tower collapsed. One of the broadcasters screamed as it fell, story after story. People were running in the streets now, away from the falling debris. I broke out into a cold sweat. At 10:28 a.m. the North Tower collapsed. I looked up at the young man beside me, my vision starting to blur with tears. "I know. I know," he whispered, his voice wavering, not looking away from the tragedy that was playing out before us.

We stood silent, leaning into one another, hot tears streaming down our cheeks, our hearts breaking. All we could do now was stand and wait as we watched the ash fall and the smoke billow out into the harbor.