Thank you for starting this thread, Vash, and you too Canuck for contributing what you too were doing on that awful day.
Here in NYC, the Memorial Service started at 8:00 AM and didn't finish until 2:00 PM. The networks started at either 8:30 or 9:00 AM and finished coverage at noon -- there was football to cover. Only New York 1, the city's local 24-hour news channel covered the whole service.
The names of all those who were killed in the Twin Towers attack were read by family members. Many said the loss has gotten harder instead of easier as time has gone by. A few spoke out against the war. A few spoke out in support of it, though indirectly. Many spoke out in support of the troops and their hope that they come home soon.
I had the TV on as I as doing things around the apartment and cleaning out my email. Every so often I'd stop and just listen for five or 10 minutes to the names of the dead. That would be, I'm guessing, about 25 to 50 names. They had almost 3,000 to get through. And for every name there are family and friends of, again guessing, 25 to 50. I don't even want to do the math.
A lot went on for me on 9/11/01. Too much to write it all. A few things:
--I was in the subway waiting with a group of people for the train. We'd heard there had been a terrorist attack, but we figured it was another car bomb like before. A couple of us were even joking a little about how maybe this time they got two vans, ha ha. Then a guy with a palm pilot said that two jet airliners had deliberitely crashed into each of the Twin Towers and that one tower had just collapsed. I hadn't been a screamer or a crier at similar moments in my life, if you can call anything similar, but as soon as I'd heard the man say one of the towers had collapsed, this kind of animal sound came out of me or sort of like I'd had the wind knocked out of me. Of course we all left; some people looking clearly POd that their day would be inconvenienced. I can't judge them. I think they just didn't get it. The woman sitting next to me was walking home the same way I was. We were total strangers and we held onto each other all the way until we had to separate. Virtually at the same time we said, "I'm going to call my mother."
--I was in the subway because I had a doctor's appointment that morning. When I got home I called the doctor's office to say...I didn't know what I would say. When the receptionist answered I just said, "I can't get there. Nothing's running." He said, sounding slightly annoyed, "Can't you get a cab or something?" I was stunned for a moment and even wondered if I could get a cab. Then I thought, "Jesus Christ! NO!" and said to the guy, "Do you know what's going on?!" He said, calmly, "Yes, we have a television here. So are you coming in or do you want to reschedule?" By this time I had the TV on and was watching the second tower collapse live. I hung up on the guy.
--Later, after I'd called my mother, I went out in the hall to talk to my neighbors. One was at the elevator and said people were going up on the roof, so I went with him. About a dozen people were up there. From where I live in northern Manhattan to the WTC is about 10 miles. This was about 11:30 AM, noon. It was a very clear day and it looked as if an enormous smoke machine was just pushing more and more smoke over lower Manhattan and the Hudson River. Some people had their video cameras. Some people talked about everything they'd seen from the first announcement that a plane had hit the WTC. Some just stared in silence. Others wept.
--But the oddest experience I had was in the summer of 2002. I was taking a bus to Pennsylvania. On the way back, you get the normally familiar view of the Manhattan skyline, only this time the Twin Towers were gone. It was like seeing a familiar friend for the first time who has had his arm amputated. That's when it really hit me the WTC was gone and that the towers and just imploded into the earth, taking all those people with them.
Rgirl
