(Originally Published Saturday, September 11, 2010 – Blogger: One Daughter’s Point of View)
It’s hard to believe it’s nine years later – – nine years after that awful, horrible, confusing Monday morning. But it is.
I’ve been watching the TV today. I’ve not done anything I’d planned to do this morning. I’m too captivated by the images on the television screen. I guess not a lot has really changed about that in the past nine years. Then I hear a plane flying low over the house – very unusual – and suddenly there’s a little of that 9/11 fear sneaking into my morning, taking me emotionally back nine years.
I remember going into work after taking a week off. I was in a new job but still with my same company and same division. I was about six weeks removed from a job in contingency planning for a large bank, and I later learned that all the players in that group were out of the office.
I thought the office comedian was trying to play a joke on me – – saying stuff like ‘a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center’ and ‘I think we’re under attack’ and ‘You need to open the corporate command center.’ He wasn’t being funny. I had a lot of work to get to after a week out of the office and for some reason, I couldn’t get signed onto the Internet. I think I smiled, laughed, and said something like “sure we are being attacked – – I’m not in charge of the command center anymore” and kept trying to log on.
Then he came back again. “I’m serious — our country is being attacked. You need to do something.” I finally turned and looked my co-worker in the eye and realized this was no joke.
I walked toward the command center where someone had already turned on the two TVs in the far corners of the room. The lights in the room were out. A group of about 25 co-workers were crowding the entrance to the room where the lights hadn’t been cut on, like they were afraid to get too close to the horrible images flashing in such bold colors in the dark room. I remember they parted when I walked in and looked at me, like I was there to do something. I kept thinking “this isn’t real – – this isn’t my job – – and when it was my job we only dealt with natural disasters like Hurricane Floyd”. When I tried to contact the people who “had that job” I discovered that they were in northern Virginia and Washington, DC. I suddenly realized it was my job. I flipped the lightswitch to chase away the darkness and ‘officially opened’ the corporate command center.
The rest of the day is a blur. I remember calling my family between calls at work. We received reports of attacks in Atlanta and Chicago which of course were later confirmed to be false. We had to locate employees at a conference in New York and were able to confirm that they were safe. Thankfully, we spent most of the day working to verify that all our employees were safe, but still had to deal with the panic of our employees —without yielding to the panic ourselves. But then we started hearing about the family and friends of our co-workers who were victims of 9/11 — people in the towers or on one of the planes.
We had a systems conversion schedule for the upcoming weekend involving acquisitions in both South Carolina and Virginia. I remember participating in a conference call later in the week and listening to everyone decide if it was a ‘go’ or ‘no go’ decision. It was a ‘go’ decision. I remember driving to South Carolina to work the conversion that weekend, and being overwhelmed by the multiple flags and sense of patriotism and unity. I remember standing in a circle, holding hands with strangers who were employees and clients at one of the banks in South Carolina while we locked the doors and observed a moment of silence. I remember walking across the street to an old, small, historic church and sat among co-workers and stranger – – but all suddenly friends – – during a short memorial service. Most business closed for an hour at midday the Friday following 9/11 to attend memorial services all across the country.
In 2004, I visited ground zero. I was overwhelmed by the huge gash that hadn’t yet seemed to heal in the American heart. I walked across the street and visited the church nearby that had served so many the day of and immediately following 9/11. The church reminded me of the one I’d attended in South Carolina with all those strangers as we all held hands and cried.
Even after all the inquiries, investigations, news specials, TV documentaries, major Hollywood movies, reports, and books, I am still amazed at the heroism we saw that day. We saw it in those trained but never quite prepared for a tragedy of that magnitude. Police, firemen, and other safety workers aren’t supposed to have to handle something so traumatic. And then to have to help others even as they are losing their own to the same attack. We saw it in the the defiance of those who perished on the planes that crashed. We saw it again in the faces of our fellow Americans as we gathered to pray and hope. And we saw it in the determination of the men and women who were serving or chose to enlist in the military to protect our freedoms.
I hope we never loose sight of that hero in all of us. And I hope we never have to call on that hero again.
A Robynn’s Chirps 