9-11-2001: Where We You?

Hello, My Friends~~~

Today, so many of us will remember where we were on the fateful day that changed our way of life forever.

I was at home, in my basement studio, sitting in the same place I am writing this post now. It was a lovely day and I had the window open. As I was working, I heard a very loud "boom". Wondering if something fell on my roof, I went upstairs and looked around but saw nothing, then went back down to continue working. I heard distant sirens but didn't think anything of it. This was back in the day when "booms" and subsequent sirens didn't make us think of anything that could be more serious than a truck backfiring or the fire company responding to an auto accident.

I live a few miles from the Pentagon which is located in Arlington, VA just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC.

Shortly, after the "boom" I went upstairs to get something to drink and turned on the TV just to see what was going on.

On the TV I saw what caused the "boom" I had heard. In a panic I called my husband who works for the government in Bethesda, MD. He answered the phone and told me about the attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. My mind felt like it was in a blender. He said because he was emergency personel, he couldn't leave work early like so many folks were doing. I told him good-bye, and then called my mother. She had been trying to call but couldn't get through. We spoke just as one of the buildings of the World Trade Center collapsed. At that moment I knew I had to go get our son who was in second grade. His school was in walking distance from our home.

I ran to his school. The day was so quiet. When I got there, the school was on lock down. I volunteered to usher children to the door as their parents came to pick them up. I sat in the librarian's office and watched the horrible events of the day unfold. A plane down in Shanksville, PA? A possible explosion at the Capitol Building, the State Department? Rumors swirled round and round on the news broadcasts. I finally took our son home. He had questions, and I answered them mostly telling him he was safe and Daddy was safe.

Thank goodness for Cartoon Network which our son watched that day as I watched the news and took calls from family and friends just checking in making sure we were OK. Neighbors came home all day, some in carpools because they worked at the Pentagon and couldn't access their cars due to the attack.

My husband finally came home at 5 p.m. He said it was very eerie as he saw only a few other cars on the usually jam-packed Capitol Beltway. That night the only airplanes we heard were the loud and low-flying jets circling the airspace above the Washington, DC area. They kept us awake. School was closed the next day. Hubby went to work and we hung a flag and tried to figure out what we could do to help. Later we would take useful goods to the local fire departments who responded to the Pentagon attack. We found out that one of the children in our son's school lost her father in the attack on the Pentagon.

So incredibly sad. One of our neighbors who worked for the Department of Defense said, "The world as we knew it will never be the same." How right he was.

This is my September 11th story on this National Day of Rememberance. Share your story this day. We will always remember. God Bless those lost that fateful day, and God Bless America.

XXOO, Beth