I was at work that morning, trying to access the internet while the deaf person I was interpreting for was taking a typing test. Nothing would load and the teachers were becoming frustrated because many of the students needed to get on the internet. I figured I could wait and I wrote a letter to Rich, who had died in May of that year -- this was a way for me to deal with my grief.
Later in the morning, I tried to access the internet again and could only get yahoo to open ... and once it did all I could do was sit there in stunned horror at the images on the screen. This can?t be happening, I thought over and over, even as the twin towers came crashing down.
I didn't know anyone who died that terrible day. Other coworkers and students did have loved ones in one of the towers. No one could get through on the phones. Everyone was trying to stay brave about it and I began to think about all the new widows and widowers that day. I thought about all the families who'd lost a husband, a wife, a mother, father, brother, sister ... and I couldn't handle the magnitude of it all. For the first time ever, I was grateful that Rich was gone -- and I was terrified. We were at war.
I?d contacted the kids? schools and learned that the news wasn?t going to be announced because of the fear that it would inspire. I was relieved. The kids didn?t know anything was wrong until they came home and saw it on TV.
Over the next few months, my terror almost diminished entirely but I was left with a smoldering rage I could just barely control. I was angry about a lot of things. Rich was gone and I was alone through all this. Talking to friends and to kids about it all just isn?t the same as talking to someone as close as Rich was to me. I was enraged that I didn?t feel safe anymore. This might have been similar to the way people felt after Pearl Harbor.
I remember when the bombing of Afghanistan began. I remember on Widownet, there were widows from 9/11 that were horrified by it. They said their husbands would not want that done in their names. The message board just about split, with one faction totally in support of war and bombing and the other against it. I used to voice my opinions there but not anymore. I?m tired of all the politics and hatred.
Now, I just mostly feel sad when I think of 9/11 ? saddest for the families who lost their loved ones.
Today, some of the radio stations having been playing songs dedicated to what happened on 9/11. I was almost in tears when one station played ?Miami 2017? by Billy Joel. It crossed my mind that, in 2017, Tomas & Nikolas might be graduating ? and that it could be said about their class that they don?t remember 9/11 at all.
Some of the the song's lyrics really hit a raw nerve with me:
I?ve seen the lights go out on broadway-
I saw the ruins at my feet?
I saw the lights go out on broadway-
I watched the mighty skyline fall.
?
They blew the bronx away-
And sank manhattan out to sea....
You know those lights were bright on broadway-
But that was so many years ago...
There are not many who remember-
They say a handful still survive...
To tell the world about...
The way the lights went out,
And keep the memory alive....