The Observation Deck

Seven years ago, I went to work downtown.

I sat at a desk and went about my morning.

Seven years ago, I remember a co-worker telling me that there had been a plane crash in New York.

I sat at my desk and went about my morning.

Seven years ago, I remember the screams through the hallway as coworkers watched a second plane hit the towers.

I dropped everything.

I watched.

I cried.

I prayed.




Today, when I remember that day, I still cry.

And I still pray.

God help us. God bless us. And God bless America.

7 years ago, I was working in Tower City at an attorney's office. I was doing my job, and the phone rang. The one attorney's wife said "do you have a tv? a plane just flew in the WTC." I was in shock and then thought "Ok who gave that guy a license to fly a plane? Did he not see the big ol building?" Then the phone rang again, and we were told about the 2nd hit, then the phones went off again and told about the Pentagon. I was in shock, I was scared, and all I could think about was my son. We were the first building to be evacuated in downtown, and as I drove out of downtown, I was crying, I was scared, but mainly I wanted to understand why this was happening. I got to my son's pre-school and the teachers had no idea what was going on. After I told them, the turned on the tv and soon more parents were there.
I took my son to my grandparents house and just prayed with them. I went home later on that day and spent the day watching silly movies with my son, playing with him, hugging him and praying with him. I was thankful he was "slow" and could not understand this, I was thankful he was still young enough to cuddle with me. That night we camped out in the living room, snuggled up with each other as I cried myself to sleep.
7 years later, I still pray for those lost souls, I still mourn for the heros that tried to save them. I am still trying to understand why this happened, as I am sure most people are doing. Today I will cuddle my children, play games with them, and remind them that I love them.

Seven years ago I was living in the Bay Area. I woke up a little before 6 am to feed my daughter. I turned on FOXnews to watch the morning show. I saw the first tower on fire and listened to the newscaster saying there had been and accident with a small plane. I ran into my bedroom to show my husband. We turned on the TV and within seconds the second plane hit. We just sat their in shock, both of us crying. It seemed like we sat there for hours. We heard about the plane hitting the pentagon, we heard about another plane going down. I didn't know if we should send our son to kindergarten, we worried about my husband going into the city. We cried and many did most of the day. We prayed and today I will pray for all of those who lost their lives and for their families and friends.

A day like 9/11 can and did bring out such a variety of experiences and emotions. Some emotions such as fear and sadness on my part were understandable. But, as is the case in any situation, it was also a day for the bizarre.
I was doing some early painting at at a friend's house, watching the Today Show. At about 8:45 it became very clear that something very unusual had happened in New York City. They showed the video of the first Tower that was hit. I decided to do a fast clean up and head home because I had other stops that day.
At home I turned on CNBC in time to hear the announcer,Marc Haines, say in stunned awe---"It's gone. The World Trade Center just fell. It's gone."
A true statement but how can anybody absorb or understand it, really?
As it unfolded it became clear that this was an attack.
I had to go down to Brookpark for a prior appointment. Just a little human gesture, an exchange---as I let someone pull out of a gas station while I was stopped at a light, we both were sort of confused. Then he tentatively raised a clenched fist of solidarity to me which I returned.
Once in Brookpark the eerie silence hit me. No airport noise. Nothing.
And now for the slightly bizarre. As I watched the events unfold we saw radar show that flight 93 had apparently flown over Cleveland and turned back East at Oberlin. Cleveland Mayor Mike White immediately got on TV to insist that this wasn't a rejection of Cleveland, but that in fact we were worth attacking!!!
And then on into to the evening. Some things never change even if your country is attacked. My pal had gotten into an argument with his wife and wanted to come over and drink some of his problems away. So we went over to the Warren Road Tavern. Man, talk about electricity in the air. And, as luck would have it (my buddy and I had spent most of college trying to avoid fights) some knucklehead tried to challenge my friend to a fight!!! The bartender booted his ass out.
We then went up to the Old Stand. Just as we were settling into our beers, the same a**hole came up and asked if we thought he was unfairly treated getting kicked out of the other bar!!!!!

Talk about a day of perplextiy and incongruity. For me, the emotions, a sudden catching before I felt myself giving over to grief didn't come until a day or so later.

On Sept. 11th, 2001, I sat in a room at a State Hospital for mentally ill individuals. The event was to be the first of many attempts to improve the working relations between my agency, the Board of Mental Retardation/Developmental Disabilities and the County Board of Mental Health. There had been a long time kind of rivalry between the agencies where people we serve could fit in either service (it is staggering the amount of people with disabilities that also have some sort of mental illness). This was the olive branch. The presentation was started with a televised, pre-taped dialogue between our State Directors from both agencies talking together like Stalin and Roosevelt (our guy was Roosevelt, naturally).

Then it got weird. I typically would sit in the back and I noticed on one of the A/V guys monitor in the back of the room a news report and what looked like a fire at one of the World Trade Center towers. I along with a couple other attendees huddled around the monitor and turned up the volume. The presenter droned on and on in the background, eventually making rude comments about our being rude and watching TV. I explained what we were watching and immediately the room grew silent. But here is the odd thing. The presenter went on anyway. We watched in horror as this happened with half the group (about 100 people) watching the TV and the rest still trying to hear the presenter.

It was at this point that my department's general manager looked to her staff that were there and simply said, "go home to your families and be safe." That was it. This agency being in Summit County, I had a ride ahead of me as I raced to pick up my then toddler aged child from day care. En route, I passed by the airport just about the same time I started hearing reports of a plane that was being held on the runway that was suspected as possibly being involved in the attacks. It was surreal and a blur from there. Months later, I would receive in the mail a certificate for a "1/2 credit for partial attendance" of this conference. Apparently, they finished out the day, if you can believe it.

The rest of the day I played on the floor with my little girl as I watched our nation bleed.

To this day it is still an abstract event. Prior to our little one being born we used to have the free time and money to travel to NYC. My first trip there since '99 is likely to happen this winter where for the first time I will approach the city with its new, starker skyline. I recently showed my daughter a picture I had from my college trip to NYC where I stood on top of one of the Trade Center Towers and took a picture of the world. It was glorious.

Surreal would be the understatement.

I was on East 43 and Payne, with a small company that makes awnings for my business. It was the second time I had every used them or been there. I stood at the counter for 10 minutes before anyone came up front, and they asked if I had heard of the accident in New York. I mentioned I hadn't.

She invited me back to the back room where they had a 10" black and white TV, with the entire shop gathered around it. As everyone was speculating how a plane could hit a building that big, there was another explosion. Suddenly everyone realized it was a second plane, which meant the first was not a mistake. Silence, then everyone started talking at the same time.

I quietly left the store without anything I came for, and called my wife. We had just moved into the studio in The Detroit Cooks Arts Building. She had heard nothing about it. She turned on the TV as others knocked at the door. Slowly the building filtered into the office to watch TV as I hurried back to work. Talking with Deb and listening to the radio.

The rest of the day was a blur, Flight 93, the attack on the Pentagon became footnotes as the WTC crumbled. I called a freind in New Jersey who had been watching it through his telescope and he was speechless. Then I called some friends in NYC, but couldn;t get through, lines busy.

As I look back, and think of the day and the lesson. I am still amazed at:
1) We are really not much safer today.
2) We are not any closer to bringing them to trial.
3) The billions and billions in spending this event marks.
4) The amount of terror this one act was able to stir.
5) Even with this, the country is still as divided today as ever.
6) The day all lives changed forever.

FWIW


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My mom and I were talking about 9/11 yesterday. She had a somewhat surreal day. As I previously stated we were living on the other side of the country so we were very far away. She went into the oral surgeons office early in the morning to have some work done. She was put to sleep for the procedure. After it was done my step-dad drove her home and then left to run some errands. He had been watching the TV before he left to see the coverage and when he left the TV in the room was still on. He also forgot to bring his cell phone with him. My mother woke up in a groggy state and saw on the TV a picture of NYC smoking, the Towers had already fell. She said the words on the screen said America Under Attack. She totally freak up because my step-dad didn't answer his phone, my brother was living in the Dominican Republic and she was unable to get ahold of him and I didn't answer my phone either. I remember she left a message on my answering machine freaking out. I called her back a few minutes later and she was just sobbing uncontrollably. I told her it was okay and I explained what happened. She said she thought it was the end of the world or something and I can totally understand that. It is interesting though that she experienced it in such a different way since she was so out of it while it happened.

One of my friends from high school gave birth to her first child on 9/11 shortly after the planes hit the tower. She named her daughter Hope (cheesy yes) because she wanted a reminder that even on the worst days God is still gracious.

I don't think naming a child born on 9/11/01 "Hope" is cheesy.

We were home. I had trouble sleeping the night before, so I was sleeping in. DH woke me to tell me a plane had crashed into the first tower. I was confused. My immediate thought was that it was a small plane and mentioned buildings being able to tolerate crashes, but he insisted it wasn't like that.

We got in front of a tv and saw the second plane crash. We were numb with disbelief and had to keep watching.

I remember we talked about how the towers were listing and how bad it looked. For some reason, as soon as the first tower started to collapse, I began to count. I did the same thing when the second tower fell. Like everyone else, we were absolutely stunned. It happened so quickly. It was impossible to reconcile the reality before our eyes.

We wondered where our NY friends were and if they were alive.

DH had a meeting downtown he was supposed to attend - and I think he went, but I begged him not to - or promise that he would not take any of the big bridges to get there or home. I was terrified that the bridges would be next - probably because the local news had cut in with the announcements and questions surrounding flight #93 and I have a vivid imagination.

I remember, later in the day, how weird it was that there were no planes in the sky - obviously, we're close enough to Hopkins to see lots of planes. The silence of the skies was unimaginable.

For a while the sight of any planes frightened me, even though I knew that was not rational.

I went with my brother to the Browns game after 9/11. Security was intense and the workers at the stadium were alternately professional and hysterical. Al Lerner had workers hand out a paper American flag to each visitor. My brother has plastic pockets for tickets that we hang from a lanyard around our necks. We put our little flags into the pockets, where they live to this day. It's a silly little piece of paper and we are each very careful with it.

I remember the first time we saw a plane fly over the stadium from Burke and I nervously asked my brother about the ban I thought was in place. I was pretty sure flying a plane into a stadium would be next.

I also remember watching Donald Rumsfeld on TV talking about the Pentagon. I had never heard his voice sound like it did that day. The collapse of the towers had been so spectacular that it was not easy to imagine (or see) what exactly had happened at the Pentagon.

We called my dad and talked about what life in the US was like following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Seeing the flags at the high school and immediately grasping the meaning of them - those little flags like grave markers covering an expanse of green space... brought back the feelings that were so difficult to even allow myself to feel.

And thank you to each person who has shared memories. It's been very moving to read.

9/11/01 -I was reading a book and my partner was watching a movie on Turner. The phone rang and it was my aunt sobbing, telling me turn on CNN.

We did and we saw the replay of the first tower and the live hit of the second. I just knew that someone was going to pick up the red phone and that would be the end of everything.

I called my kids and they all answered sobbing. Maureen was at Kent and a bunch of kids piled into her room and they were watching together and crying. The other two answered and everyone was sobbing. I wanted them all home, I want to touch them and hold them.

My ex-partner and I are both moms. Some moms have a certain way of showing the love - food.

We hopped into the van and went up to Marc's to buy groceries. We didn't need them, but we felt compelled.

The store was packed. It was eerie though, I swear at least 2/3rds of the people there were Muslim women in birkas.

I asked a birka clad woman if there was a convention of Muslim women in town. She said "No, no convention. We just know that this might be the last time we can safely leave our homes for a long time".

I was stunned. That thought never crossed my mind.

My heart broke again.