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@Kathy_Valentine I can't possibly describe what it was like to have experienced #9/11 as a New Yorker. Driving into work from Staten Island into Brooklyn, seeing a plane in the sky noting without alarm that the plane was out of place,seemed too low. Heard and saw fire engines and emergency vehichles all headed toward the Verrazano assuming there must have been a bad fire in Brooklyn. I was listening to a CD in the car unaware of what was truly going on. As I hit the entrance to the lower level of the Verrazano emergency vehichles blocked the entrance forcing me onto the upper level. As I crossed the bridge I noted to my left, the New York skyline, thick billowing smoke pouring out of a building that I couldn't quite identify. I turned on the news and heard that a plane had hit Tower I of the World Trade Center. Was that the plane I saw? What a horrible accident, I thought, until the news of a second plane hitting Tower II that brought me to the reality that THIS WAS NO ACCIDENT. WE WERE UNDER ATTACK.
When I was on my way back home, I heard a reporter go out of character and begin to scream , “Oh my God, Oh my God…” My Towers were gone, our Pentagon hit, a plane full of heroes downed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Everything changed forever in these moments. For weeks I cleaned the ashes of people, papers, and debris of tragedy from my car, my home. For weeks my eyes teared from the poisoned atmosphere. I waited at countless intersections as funeral processions went by. People were dead because of terrorists? Yes. People—many, many people—were dead because of terrorists. My people, my sense of security, my city—in ruins.
Ten years later, the horror and hurt remain. I know they will always be with me. BUT, in the place of my Towers are now the strongest sense of our resilience, a pride and love of my city and country, the experience of true evil, and the experience of miracles and true good. My friends who had moved to Austin and San Francisco flew “home,” back then, because, once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker. But, on September 11, 2001, and on every September 11th ever afterward, all people everywhere were and are New Yorkers.
May we pray for peace, act with love, and live with hope always.
When I was on my way back home, I heard a reporter go out of character and begin to scream , “Oh my God, Oh my God…” My Towers were gone, our Pentagon hit, a plane full of heroes downed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Everything changed forever in these moments. For weeks I cleaned the ashes of people, papers, and debris of tragedy from my car, my home. For weeks my eyes teared from the poisoned atmosphere. I waited at countless intersections as funeral processions went by. People were dead because of terrorists? Yes. People—many, many people—were dead because of terrorists. My people, my sense of security, my city—in ruins.
Ten years later, the horror and hurt remain. I know they will always be with me. BUT, in the place of my Towers are now the strongest sense of our resilience, a pride and love of my city and country, the experience of true evil, and the experience of miracles and true good. My friends who had moved to Austin and San Francisco flew “home,” back then, because, once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker. But, on September 11, 2001, and on every September 11th ever afterward, all people everywhere were and are New Yorkers.
May we pray for peace, act with love, and live with hope always.