Where Were You on 9/11?

I remember it clearly. It was a beautiful fall day - "perfect."

I was working at the time, and a woman I worked with came in a few minutes late and said - "there's been a plane crash into the Twin Towers." We both assumed it was a small plane. Before she turned around to sit at her desk, all of the phone lines rang at the same time, we couldn't answer them fast enough. It was relatives calling us to tell us what was going on. My mom and I tried to call each other over and over again, but the phone lines were all jammed and there was no getting through. Even though she knew I wasn't there, she just needed to hear my voice, and I hers.

No one worked that day, we just hooked up radios and gathered around them to find out what was going on. My husband came and got me for lunch, and we both didn't hurry back. We wanted to be with each other. He never said he was scared, but I think he was, and I definitely was. We ate lunch at a bar, since that was the only place we could find a TV. No one was talking, just sitting quietly, watching TV, and just picking at their food.

I remember how odd it was not hearing airplanes fly over head, a sound I guess I took for granted. At the time I lived in NJ, and was able to see the very tops of the Twin Towers when I used to commute to another job. My husband and I drove to a mountain, and although we're not positive it was from the site of the Twin Towers, we saw a haze in the direction of NYC on an otherwise perfectly clear day.

I will never forget.