6 short years ago, I woke up before my 6 mos. old daughter and as I came out of the shower, I turned on the news. It was 6:30a. in AZ. 9:30a. in New York. Every single station on TV was showing a huge building on fire. It was Tower 2 of the World Trade Towers. We thought it was a wayward, small engine plane off course. As we watched this building burn, we suddenly hear this ear shattering noise and we watch in horror as a 747 with 235 people on board, slam into Tower 1. We, on the West coast are sitting in stunned silence. Then the news women started to cry and scream, "oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, those people.....those people!!"There's a bunch of noise from behind the camera and people yelling.
The station went black for a few minutes and then CNN came on for the next...... 4 days.
I ran out to the living room to see if that TV had something different on. Like my bedroom TV was playing some horrible trick on me! Shock does weird things to your mind!
I sat there in complete, motionless, shock for a solid hour until the baby started to cry.
Then the news said a plane was down in Virginia. A thraughted plan at hitting the White House!
Thank God they evacuated anyway.
And then just moments later, the Pentagon is on fire!! Now I'm terrified and I began to weep hysterically. I'm thinking, 'we're under attack'. I was, litterally, waiting for bombs to fall out of the sky!
I called my mother-in-law to get her take on this tragedy. I'm crying so hard I can barely talk to her.
She's trying to calm me down and as we talk, we both watch live, Tower 2 collapse right in front of our eyes! I remember saying, "Mom! Where's the hell is Tower 2? Where did it go? Did it fall?" Even through we watched it go down, it seemed impossible it could! These were incredibly massive buildings!! My Mom-in-law says she needs to call Dad and hangs up, in tears herself.
I had never heard her cry in the 15 years I had know her.
I've never felt fear like this in my entire life! After 11 attempts, I call my mother in CA who was an hour behind me. The phone lines are completely jammed now or have crashed already and she was the last call I could make that day.
My Mom answers groggy as she was just getting out of bed. I'm, again, crying so hard, I couldn't tell her what was going on. She's asking is something wrong with Alaura. I finally asked her if she was watching the news and she said, 'no, not yet'. I was completely stunned that she had no idea the horror I and, the nation, the world was living in for the past 90 minutes! I screamed at her to turn on her @*&$#@* TV right @%$#& now! My Mom is scared and startled at my behavior and begins to scold me but then very soon understands why.
All she can say is, "oh my God". Over and over again. It's at this time that I start recording the news. I wanted Alaura to know exactly what this was like... as it happened. I looked down at my baby, laying in my arms, and instead of welcoming this new, precious baby to the world......I apologized to her for bringing her into this horrible world full of hated. We had no idea who had done this to us and why.
And as my my Mother and I sobbed together on the phone, we watched Tower 1 collapse. We were praying she wouldn't, but 2 hours on fire was more than it could stand. It was horrifying to watch what those people were living through live on TV as we sat in peaceful sunshine feeding my baby on the couch. I felt this overwhelming sense of guilt.
I continued to record for the next 3 days. 6 VHS tapes.
Almost every station, all 35 of them, had CNN on...24/7. Even the seasoned CNN anchors were breaking down on air. Only the kiddie stations were on regular broadcasting. I had nightmares for the next 2 weeks and had to stop watching anything about New York.
War was declared on the day Alaura turned 7 mos. old. Sickening.
I still record every anniversary for my kids to see when they're older. This is the worst terrorist attack, I pray, they will ever live through in their lives.
Our parents had the Moon landing, Elvis, Vietnam war, and JFK's assassination.
We have the 1986 shuttle explosion, 2 wars, and Sept. 11.
1 comment:
Wow, that was so hard reading that post. I was reliving it with you over again. I know I am along way away from all that happened in NY but it also was on our TV 24/7 both free to air and paid. When all this was happening it was round midnight the following day in Adelaide. I lay in bed after settling Tayla (like Alaura 6m old) dumbfounded at what i was watching. And horrified when the 2nd plan hit. Then to witness the towers fall in the wee hours of the morning all I could think of was all these innocent people. I did get some video of the news that day with Jordan only just turning 2 days before hand. Near the TV. My kids still dont know too much about that day, I think its too hard for them to understand what actually went on. And very scary. I also cant belive how long ago it was. It just feels like yesterday that all this was happening. Whats happening to the world today. What is it going to be like when our kids have kids......that frightens me but there is hope. Hope that the world will become a better place for our kids to grow up in and their kids.
I am happy to make you a blog header if you like but as you can make collages your able to aswell. As I just design a header using digital scrapbook kits and use photoshop elements to design it in :)
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