9/11 dawned as beautiful here as it did that day in NYC. I had been violently ill the night before in a new town where I knew no one, I'd broken my finger in a pick-up game of basketball, my car had been the victim of a hit and run and I was three weeks into an intense graduate program. To say that my spirits were low and that I was throwing myself a pity party would not have been an understatement.
I didn't know about what happened until 9:45 what happened. By then, the attacks were over (I'm in the central time zone). Someone had mentioned before the 8:30 class that a plane had hit the WTC and I had said, "How can that even happen?" I was thinking a small plane perhaps. It was only later, after that first class of the morning was over did we really find out what happened. We couldn't get on the Internet, but a classmate had brought a small radio that morning and we clustered around it to hear the latest developments.
Out in the hallways, the televisions that normally broadcast the events of the day were tuned to CNN. We saw the footage over and over and we didn't believe it. Classes continued that day. Our last professor of the afternoon said that he was concerned about two of his students who were doing internships at the WTC but somehow, he made it through the material.
When I got home, my damaged car, my migraine, all of that, were nothing compared to the stories we were hearing - of people jumping, of the buildings collapsing. As the television played the footage of the planes slamming into the WTC on endless repeat, I spent that afternoon tracking down my friends in the NYC area. I was relieved to learn that a friend, her father and uncle who all work in the WTC got out before it collapsed; my friend's cousin did not - he worked for Cantor Fitzgerald.
The horror unfolded slowly that day and every time I saw the fireball billowing out of the WTC, of the gash in the Pentagon - I couldn't help but think we were stuck in some horrific movie, one that Hollywood had paid a disgusting amount of money on for these kinds of special effects. I mean, really, how could it happen? How could two towers strong like the WTC fall just like that? How could four planes be hijacked with boxcutters? How? How? But it wasn't a movie, it wasn't special effects; it was real, horrific and real.
The news told us of the people who jumped, and I couldn't believe that; how bad must it have been in those towers for people to take a plunge of 100 storeys? How desperate could one be to do something like that? And then there was the man and the woman, both of them stepping out of the window, hand in hand, falling together, falling forever. Maybe in those few seconds, they found some comfort. I hope that they drew some courage from each other. The evening brough us footage of the families frantically searching for loved ones. We heard about last minute phone calls, and we wondered what else was in store for us. After all, could it be over? So much had happened in such a short amount of time - were there more terrorists out there? Was this only the beginning?
Even today, the horror of September 11 is as real as it was on that beautiful day in 2001. I remembered once hearing people say that they would never forget where they were when JFK was killed. They said they would never forget when Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon. And now I have a landmark of my own, a moment that will never fade.