I was home with my mom, who was recovering from her first cancer surgery, and my youngest niece who I watched during the day. We had cartoons on the TV for her. My sister called from work and said to put on CNN because a 'small plane' had hit the World Trade Center. We quickly switched over and the first tower was burning. Everybody I know thought it was just a terrible accident, that a Cessna or something hit the tower. Then the second plane hit on live TV and we could see that it was a commercial airplane. My mother said to me, "wow, the radar must be messed up that planes are hitting buildings." My mom was not a dumb person, she just couldn't fathom that it was on purpose. I said," we're under attack." I had to repeat myself a couple of times before she got it.
Then we got the report that a plane had crashed in Pennsylvania, and another one had hit the Pentagon. We were terribly scared by this time. I lived in Philadelphia, and I recall a real fear that maybe one of our historical sites could be a target. Everything in the city went into lockdown. The buses stopped and my sister (who at that time worked near Independence Hall) was let out of work and had to begin the walk home-but before she left she called me crying that school had called and they had dismissed my niece and nephew without warning. I quickly threw my shoes on and ran to the school, but couldn't find them. I then ran to my sister's house a few blocks away and they were sitting on the front steps crying. I took them to my house.
We watched TV for hours, days. The night of 9/11 I had to go to the supermarket to food shop. Instead of the usual upbeat music, they had the news radio playing over the loudspeaker. Nobody said a word that I remember, except in hushed tones, like we were all at a funeral. On 9/12 I went to the party supply store and bought a small American flag, which I taped to our outside railing. It's the only time I've ever displayed a flag, and it stayed up for a long time.
I watched TV day and night for weeks. I think I damaged my psyche very badly, because to this day I cannot watch any documentaries about that day. I just can't. My sister and her husband visited the 9/11 museum at Ground Zero on a trip to New York last year. I couldn't do that.
In 1998 I visited New York with some friends, and we went to the Twin Towers and took the tour. It was a five minute elevator ride to reach the top observation deck. I loved that tour, and remembered it on that terrible day just a few years later. I wondered if the lady who rang me up in the souvenir shop up there had been working on 9/11 and was now dead. For me, this nameless woman who had exchanged a few cheery words with me became the symbol of all who had lost their lives. When I got home from that 1998 trip, I found the ticket stub from the tour in my coat pocket and absently put it in my sewing kit as a small memento. It is still there.
