Today is the 10th anniversary of September 11th - a day that took (in total with planes, World Trade Centre buildings, Pentagon and Flight 11 that went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania......AND the many who died from various lung cancers from inhaling toxic fumes trying to save lives) over 3,500 lives.
It was not an "American" tragedy - it was a WORLD tragedy. I'd heard there was at least 1 person represented in the World Trade Centre Towers from EVERY single nation in the world.
Almost every adult can remember what he or she was doing on that day. I was at work and the communications officer had a TV in his office. Someone came running - saying a plane crashed into the World Trad Centre. Everyone's first thought was a SMALL plane and that it was an accident. So we all packed into the room to see the footage and just as we were watching that horror.....the second plane crashed through the South Tower. It was all unfolding before our eyes. I had a sister in New York City and my first thought was to call her, to see if she was OK (although her office was in Queens, she often went in to Manhattan on various days to work). The phone lines were all busy. The receptionist where I worked had a brother who to go to a job interview that morning with Morgan Stanley in the South Tower. She was sick with worry as anyone else would be....trying to reach her brother's cell phone but all lines in/out of New York were busy. Earlier, some phones in New York must have been working because many who were trapped in the World Trade Centre called their loved ones before perishing.
Meanwhile we were in shock.....then more news came in about a plane crashing into the Pentagon, and slowly about Flight 93 that went down in Pennsylvania. We felt vulnerable as never before. Rumours were flying left and right and fear was all around us. Still, we were all unified in our fear. And for many weeks to follow - the colour of a person's skin was invisible (how I wish that part would last forever!) because we were altogether. Everyone KNEW someone who was killed - even if it was a cousin of a neighbour's second cousin and we all grieved....grief knew no skin colour or ethnicity. We held vigils with candles for the victims and we prayed for all the rescue workers and their families.
Then the incredible incidents were revealed - someone whose turn it was to buy doughnuts for the office and got stuck in traffic. It wasn't his turn to die. Our receptionist's brother was OK - the brave director of security for Morgan Stanley (who lost his own life going BACK into the South Tower to look for more)...DEFIED the orders to stay put. He led all 2,700 employees (and the receptionist's brother) out of the building before the second plane struck. Another World Trade Centre employee's alarm failed to sound and she woke up an hour and a half late for work. It wasn't her turn to die. My sister in New York City was OK.
The days ahead were cloaked in extreme pain and sorrow. My mother had passed away the month before and my first thought was "thank God she didn't have to witness this".
We thought of all the fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts who would not be going home to their families ever again. President Bush called it "evil" and that was the EXACT word - it WAS evil!! There was great unity in the nation in the weeks and months to follow.
Much later, we would learn that new victims were claimed - because they inhaled the toxic dust and fumes in an effort to help save lives.
The attacks were vulgar, evil, senseless and stabbed each and every one of us in the heart like a knife. Ten years later, my family and I cried our eyes out as the ceremonies commenced, as the names of the victims were read. The UNITY that we all felt on that day was there again today.
May there never be another such attack.
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