9/11 Remembered
9/11 Remembered
Like most people, seminal moments in our lives can leave such indelible impressions on us that they can freeze us in time. Like the John Kennedy or Martin Luther King assassinations, the Space Shuttle disaster and most notably the unprovoked attack by Islamic Terrorists on the World Trade Center.
Events of such singular magnitude leave us remembering details such as where we were at the exact moment of receiving the news.
I can tell you that I certainly remember where I was when I received the news about the destruction of the World Trade Center as I was momentarily paralyzed with fear. Afraid not for myself, but for my wife and her friend and traveling companion who were spending the week in New York City attending the International Gift Show at the Jacob Javetts Center right in the heart of Manhattan.
Unable to reach them by cell phone,(all circuits were overloaded) remember this was 8 years ago and the technology was not up to today’s standard, I was frustrated and overwhelmed with that peculiar type of anxiety that comes with “not knowing.”
Eventually, my wife was able to contact me. Their hotel room which was on the Jersey side of the Hudson River had become a temporary residence for a large number of Manhattan refuges and they were sharing a pivotal experience that they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
Sometimes, here on Chincoteague Island and the Eastern Shore, things in heavily populated, major cities like New York seem to be happening in another universe and when I finally did get to talk to my wife it was very hard to grasp that she was in the middle of this.
It even gets a little bit stranger, you see the only reason my wife didn’t end up literally right at the foot of the World Trade Center, right at Ground Zero at exactly the time of the attack was that her friend had a cast on her leg and was "moving slow” on that day.. This caused them to miss their usual train, a fortunate accident that prohibited them from leaving the Jersey side at all. When they did try to leave, they were turned back and told to stay in their room. They watched it on TV and looked out their window and could see the smoke and floating debris just a very short distance across the river. It was surreal!
My wife cried, “ Sam, I could feel thousands of souls leaving this Earth.” Her sadness and grief was palpable and I could feel it in my chest even over the phone. This is the moment that it became real for me. I remember where I was sitting, the strange position I had placed the dining room chair while I was talking to her, I even remember the squeak of the chair, but these things merely frame the sound of her words and the emotion she conveyed. My memory was set in stone. It will forever be with me. My sadness for those people that were murdered and their families as well as my loathing for the cowardly perpetrators of this vile act remain unchanged with the passage of time.
My wife’s emotion was a complex union of the strange relief one experiences when one “dodges a bullet” and a sincere and profound empathy for those who died and for their loved ones as they are the real victims of this atrocity.
We as Americans can never forget either! No one in those Towers deserved to die on that day. We were attacked in the most cowardly manner by people who hate us simply for what we are and we should be ever grateful to those who have kept this type of slaughter of innocent Americans from happening again.
Like most people, seminal moments in our lives can leave such indelible impressions on us that they can freeze us in time. Like the John Kennedy or Martin Luther King assassinations, the Space Shuttle disaster and most notably the unprovoked attack by Islamic Terrorists on the World Trade Center.
Events of such singular magnitude leave us remembering details such as where we were at the exact moment of receiving the news.
I can tell you that I certainly remember where I was when I received the news about the destruction of the World Trade Center as I was momentarily paralyzed with fear. Afraid not for myself, but for my wife and her friend and traveling companion who were spending the week in New York City attending the International Gift Show at the Jacob Javetts Center right in the heart of Manhattan.
Unable to reach them by cell phone,(all circuits were overloaded) remember this was 8 years ago and the technology was not up to today’s standard, I was frustrated and overwhelmed with that peculiar type of anxiety that comes with “not knowing.”
Eventually, my wife was able to contact me. Their hotel room which was on the Jersey side of the Hudson River had become a temporary residence for a large number of Manhattan refuges and they were sharing a pivotal experience that they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
Sometimes, here on Chincoteague Island and the Eastern Shore, things in heavily populated, major cities like New York seem to be happening in another universe and when I finally did get to talk to my wife it was very hard to grasp that she was in the middle of this.
It even gets a little bit stranger, you see the only reason my wife didn’t end up literally right at the foot of the World Trade Center, right at Ground Zero at exactly the time of the attack was that her friend had a cast on her leg and was "moving slow” on that day.. This caused them to miss their usual train, a fortunate accident that prohibited them from leaving the Jersey side at all. When they did try to leave, they were turned back and told to stay in their room. They watched it on TV and looked out their window and could see the smoke and floating debris just a very short distance across the river. It was surreal!
My wife cried, “ Sam, I could feel thousands of souls leaving this Earth.” Her sadness and grief was palpable and I could feel it in my chest even over the phone. This is the moment that it became real for me. I remember where I was sitting, the strange position I had placed the dining room chair while I was talking to her, I even remember the squeak of the chair, but these things merely frame the sound of her words and the emotion she conveyed. My memory was set in stone. It will forever be with me. My sadness for those people that were murdered and their families as well as my loathing for the cowardly perpetrators of this vile act remain unchanged with the passage of time.
My wife’s emotion was a complex union of the strange relief one experiences when one “dodges a bullet” and a sincere and profound empathy for those who died and for their loved ones as they are the real victims of this atrocity.
We as Americans can never forget either! No one in those Towers deserved to die on that day. We were attacked in the most cowardly manner by people who hate us simply for what we are and we should be ever grateful to those who have kept this type of slaughter of innocent Americans from happening again.
Labels: Chincoteague Island, Eastern Shore
posted by The Chincoteague Insider | 9:42 AM
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