i remember

all over the blogging world
people are doing things
to commemorate
this 5th anniversary
of 9/11

this is my recollection
of that morning

to read other recollections
go to this blog

here's my story

i don't recall
much of the early morning
of september 11th

my daugher started
kindergarten that year
and i was finally adjusting

i'd been married exactly one month

i had started a new job
back at the bank
the day before

it was my first time back
in a couple of years
but it seemed everything
had changed

also
my best friend
from 10th grade
had been missing for a week
and they found her
the day before
and arrested her husband
(who i also went to school with)
they charged him with murder
(he is currently serving
two consecutive life sentences...
one for my friend
and one for the unborn baby
she was carrying)

anyway
that's another story
entirely

let's just say
i was already struggling
to keep the fog at bay

so a customer comes in
and says that a plane has hit
the world trade center
embarassingly enough
i thought to myself
the what?
i didn't even know what
building they were talking about

we took the nine inch
black and white tv
from the break "closet"
(it was so small
it could hardly be called
a break room)
and put it on the
teller line

this is where i saw
the second plane
hit the second tower
live

i think shock took over
from there
i called my husband
(mr. news was glued to it)
my mom
(she hadn't even heard about it yet)
my daughter's school
(we have not informed the children
and will most likely continue their day as scheduled)
my in-laws
(i think i ended up contacting them via email)
and then i thought about
one of my best friends from high school
who lived in new york at the time
and her fiance
and his family
after wringing my hands
i called her parents
who had just communicated with her
she was walking uptown
to catch up with her fiance
phone service was very spotty
and no internet

so with everyone accounted for
i glued myself to the tv

i don't even remember
the news of the pentagon
or the field in pennslyvania

my next clear memory
is of my whole family
sitting in our apartment
the news keeps streaming video
of people jumping from the towers
you can hear the thud of their bodies
as they hit the ground
i look at my husband
(the news junkie)
and beg him to turn it off

i do remember
the unity of america
during the time that followed
and the baseball games
were suspended
when they played again
it was "god bless america"
and not "take me out to the ballgame"
my daughter asked me last week
why we sing "take me out to the ballgame"
now and not "god bless america"
she doesn't remember what it was like
before 9/11

in august of 2002
i took a trip to visit
that friend in nyc
a whirlwind trip
where she showed me
all the important ny things

almost one year had passed
and they still were clearing
the wreckage at ground zero
the wall across the street
was still plastered with flyers
of missing people and memorials
the skyscrapers that faced
where the towers once stood
were still covered in protective nets
and some windows still covered
with wood

it was eerie
to visit
to place myself
where that nightmare happened
what was even more strange
was walking away
and going shopping
moving on
as if it didn't matter
when in my heart
things were never the same
and i lived very far away
i can't imagine how
all those people somehow
managed to carry on

here are a few photos
i took on that trip
the impact was so huge
it was hard to capture it
in a few pictures...

they put a fence up
around ground zero
and this is a photo
looking out across
the expanse where
the towers used to be
if you look in the center
of the middle chain link
you will see a cross
fashioned out of two steel beams
this is how the building fell
i believe this cross
made the front of a few magazines
right after 9/11


this is the base of the building
adjacent to ground zero
the black thing is the protective net
i was talking about
if you can click on it
to make it bigger
look at the "button" on the wall
it is a clock
and it has stopped
extremely sad to me that day
for some reason

i have more pictures
but really
how many more do we need to see?
the media blasted us
with images that day
and we couldn't tear ourselves away

my heart goes out to the little ones
the generations affected
and they won't even know
what it was like
before that awful day
when the sky fell

i remember

how can i possibly forget?