My Memories September 11, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise , trackbackI debated putting my September 11 memory out here. But here it is.
I was at work. Usual place for me to be. I was deep in my
infertility nightmare. Once this cycle failed, we would start
injections. Me, the terrified of needles woman would have to take daily
shots in the stomach in attempts to have a child. Lovely.
I was checking my favorite web-board and compiling code, my normal
MO when I saw a post about a plane hitting the Trade Center building. I
immediately went toNYTimes dot com. My stomach lurched. Lee lives in
Manhattan. He must not be down that way. Why would he? He stays on the
upper west side, most of the time…
I went across the hall to Warren’s office. We all gathered around
listening. We listened for a while. We heard about the second plane,
the car bomb outside the state department, the pentagon, then the
unthinkable happened, the tower collapsed.
I texted Jay who was in a staff meeting. The observatory director
was reporting from his pager the news coming in. Every body was. The
staff meeting continued in shock.
As the flights were confirmed, HR rushed and reported that none of our people were on those flights. Small miracles.
Then Jay came down to my office. As he started to talk to me, his cell rang. MIL called. Lee was okay and so was Keith.
Keith? From Seattle? yes, he was at the Millennium hotel at the WTC
covering a conference. He called Lee and said he was out of the
building, but he was going to stay and cover the story. He filled one
of the first on site stories for his editor. What we didn’t know until
later, was that Keith stayed until he saw people leaping from the
buildings to their deaths. He could not stay watching that. So he
turned and headed towards Greenwich Village.
He was at least 1/4 mile away when the first tower fell. Lee did not
know this and lead to panic attack and fear. He thought Keith was still
there.
We thought they were both safe. Jay and I went out for a walk. I
looked at the sky and made the lame joke of the “Ranger Blue Sky” (the
1994 NY Rangers celebrated their Stanley Cup win on a day where the
reporter called it the Ranger Blue sky”), although in truth, it was
beautiful.
Work was closed. We took my friend Lynn to our house to watch the news. We were all stunned and sick.
We went out side for a walk. A small plane was flying overhead.
Within seconds, a fighter was next to this plane. We are near an
airforce base. That night, Jay and I went for a walk again and noticed
that except for the patrolling fighters, the sky was eeriely silent.
Those are my initial memories. I got sad today and started to
explain when Soleil asked, but then stopped and told her I wasn’t ready
to talk about it. Because I am not.
Please go to 2,996 today, or this week, or this year.
I posted a tribute for John W. Wright Jr.
Unfortunately, I can’t get to the 2,996 site right now. I am hoping
that D.C.Roe has just been FLOODED and needs to fix the technical
details.
Comments»
I remember the silent sky so vividly. Very eerie for us both that live by airports.
There’s a mirror site at http://www.madmommajen.com/ ; apparently the original site was flooded and went down.
Thanks OM… Looks like 2996 is back up