In Remembrance of 9/11

I like to take a moment each September 11th for remembrance and to say a quick prayer of thanks. If you didn't already know, Jeff and I were living in NYC on 9/11/01. This year, I pulled up a recollection I wrote back in 2002 and I'm posting it here.

9/11/2002
"It has been difficult to see the coverage of September 11th grow nearing the anniversary. I have so many emotions about that time. But I am truly grateful that I know no matter what happens here, we have a God who watches over us and loves us. This gives me peace in troubled times.

I want to share with you my story. It's a bit long, so read it when you have a few moments.
On September 11th, Jeff and I were at work on Wall Street in Manhattan. At 8:50am, we were on a conference call with our home office in Dallas when they told us that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Don't worry they said, it was just a small plane. Another co-worker came into the office and said "another plane hit the WTC. Then things began to unravel...

Around this time, we began listening to the NY radio stations and went downstairs to the lobby where televisions gave a better picture of what was actually happened. There we heard and saw all the horror that was taking place just blocks from where we worked and only three blocks from our apartment. This was our city! Immediately we began getting calls and emails from our loved ones still in Dallas. The phone lines began to get jammed and the one communication that still worked was email. We emailed everyone we could and told them all that we were alright.

As we listened to the radio at 9:37am we received word that the Pentagon had also been hit. This is when we truly began to worry. We were mere yards from the New York Stock Exchange, a site considered a major target for terrorism and heavily guarded. An attack on this site would mean severe danger for us. But Manhattan is now in lock-down, all bridges and tunnels have been closed and subway operations in downtown have ceased. Our only choice will now be to walk. We made the decision to stay put. That our 2nd floor office space was the safest indoor space we had since our home was even closer to the terror.

Then the stunned announcer said that the WTC South Tower had just collapsed. We couldn't believe it! We had images in our head of the WTC falling sidways and we wondered if our apartment building was even there anymore. We began to think of the thousands and thousands of people who worked in and near those towers every day and it was very emotional. Jeff was on the phone with his Dad, emotionally telling him how he was very scared. I remember thinking that I didn't have time to be scared or worried, I needed to take care of my family and decide what we needed to do now.

The windows to our office became pitch black as the clouds of soot and debris began to rain over lower Manhattan. A co-worker went down to the street to see if he could see anything. He immediately came back up covered in soot and ash which burned his eyes and lungs. He said there was no way we could leave now...we had to wait until the smoke cleared.
We got through on the phone to our apartment building...it was still there, but they were evacuating. We could not go back for anything, the police were locking it down. Now all we had were the clothes we had worn to work. No toothbrush, no change of clothes, nothing. We decided to go across the street to get cash at a nearby ATM machine since we did not know how long we would be out of our apartment and were worried we would need money in this crisis.
A co-worker braved the dying smoke and debris and crossed the street to an ATM. After he returned, the next stunning annoucement...the WTC North tower collapsed. The windows again became pitch black as an additional cloud of debris covered our building. The smoke began to penetrate our building at this point and the air became sooty and more difficult to breathe. The smell of concrete dust was extremely strong. Now we began to worry about any biological agents in the air.

We continued to listen to the news.
Around 10:45am we got on the phone to friends who lived farther North in Manhattan and begin making arrangements for where we will stay the night and possibly the next few nights. We arrange to stay at the apartment of a friend for the night. We will have to walk to Midtown though. Quite a distance with no transportation and in work clothes and shoes on a hot September day. We continue to stay put to let the debris dye down.

Around 1:00pm, things have settled down a bit. We decided to begin our trek North. As we came out to the street, the scene was like a movie. The streets were mostly a ghost town by now, except for a few soot covered people with masks walking North. Cars and buses were left in the middle of the streets, doors wide open, abandoned at the sight of the oncoming debris cloud. Debris was still raining down in the streets. Everything was covered in ash...sometimes almost a foot high even where we were! I felt very surreal, very emotional. We found a business card from WTC 2 on the street in perfect condition. There was paper everywhere. There were fire trucks and police cars everywhere. Pillars of smoke continued to spew from the fires still burning and the sun was blotted out with smoke.

We covered our faces as best we could and began walking up the east side of the island near the seaport. We were with an exodus of people at this point. We walked past the Brooklyn Bridge and were amazed at the steady stream of thousands of people making the exodus from Manhattan. Manhattan was like the titanic and everyone wanted out. They were staring backwards at the smoky pillars or hanging their heads.

We made our way past barricades and screaming police cars, to 14th street where we finally caught an open subway up to Midtown. When we arrived at our friends house it was almost 5:00pm. It took us almost four hours to travel such a large distance. This was the first point we were able to sit down and watch everything on TV. We couldn't believe that we had been so close to all that destruction. And we had been safe. We were just amazed. Luckily Jeff and I were at the same place when all this happened. I know of many friends who were separated during this time, with one spouse being evacuated to New Jersey and the other stuck in Manhattan and they couldn't reach each other. We were very lucky to be together and will always be grateful for that.

About a week later we were allowed back into our apartment, escorted by a National Guardsman, to retrieve whatever we could carry downstairs in ten minutes. There was still no electricity and no water in the buildings and many of the windows were broken in some of the units and lobby. We grabbed suitcases and whatever clothing and toiletries we had handy and were escorted out of the building. The streets by now were blocked off with barricades and machine-gun toting National Guard. We walked past shattered buildings and everywhere people had posted signs with pictures of loved ones asking 'Have you seen me?'. It was very hard knowing that it was becoming all too likely that none of these people would ever be found. It would be about three weeks before we would be able to return to the apartment.

We are thankful to our friends in New York who put us up and let us share their space, food, and lives during this time. We are also thankful to everyone who prayed for us and worried for us. We are thankful we made it out of this mess with only incoveiences. We were truly blessed.
I'm sure I'm not the same. I'm not sure that you could ever go through an event like that and be entirely the same. Has it dramatically changed me into somebody different? No, I don't believe that. I would hope the experience would remind us once again of how fragile and how important life is, that we need to use it well. We need to be grateful for every day, recognizing that we're not promised tomorrow. It reminded me to be appreciative of other people and what they do."

In Memory of September 11, 2001...
ONE
As the soot and dirt and ash rained down, We became one color.
As we carried each other down the stairs of the burning building, We became one class.
As we lit candles of waiting and hope, We became one generation.
As the firefighters and police officers fought their way into the inferno, We became one gender.
As we fell to our knees in prayer for strength, We became one faith.
As we whispered or shouted words of encouragement, We spoke one language.
As we gave our blood in lines a mile long, We became one body.
As we mourned together the great loss, We became one family.
As we cried tears of grief and loss, We became one soul.
As we retell with pride of the sacrifice of heroes, We become one people.
We are: One color One class One generation One gender One faith One language One body One family One soul One people We are The Power of One. We are United. We are America.

This candle was lit on the 11th of September, 2001. Please pass it on to your friends & family so that it may shine all across America.

"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle, it gains a greater brilliance."