I wanted to pay some type of personal respect to the victims of 9/11 but my memories of that day are scattered- I was a freshman at the time and I have slight memory problems, so I asked Mr. Fox to share his experience of witnessing the horrific events from 10 years ago:
I was in high school. It was my junior year. I had woken up and hurriedly gotten into the shower, I was probably late. My mom came to the door and knocked quickly, "Ryan, hurry…you've got to see this. Something's happened in New York. They think a plane hit the World Trade Center." I got out and went across the hall into my parents room as soon as I could.
They were sitting on their bed, concerned looks on their faces as CNN scrolled updates across the screen, and we watched Tower 1 smoking across that huge gash high on the tower. Shock and confusion, the grasping that comes in the face of such an upending swept over me. "Are they sure it was a plane? That seems too big to be from a plane. It could have been a bomb." I said as I was thinking of when the World Trade Center had been bombed in '93. "No, they keep saying it was a plane." Then that question, "Was it an accident? Do they know? I mean, a plane hit the Empire State building in like, the 60's… but that couldn't have been this bad, it was a 737. They had to repair it but it didn't come down." We talked like that for a few minutes, mostly me talking, spouting facts in an attempt to make sense of it all and "Remember mom, how when we went to New York we saw that board about how a plane hit the Empire State Building? Do you remember why? They were off course right?" Why? If it was an accident, how? If it was intentional, who? Is the tower going to collapse? The Empire State building didn't collapse and it was smaller… There were only questions and the image of a burning tower.
Then, all at once, the camera cut to live footage as the news anchor frantically reported what? I have no idea. Whatever was said was rendered immaterial as we saw a glimpse of a plane, the impact, and the fireball that erupted from the side facing the camera. Now we knew. At that point, the question was answered. It wasn't an accident, it was an attack. My heart fell to my stomach. My face strained in shock; eyes wide, mouth open and covered in shock. All we said was "NO!" There were no words for the moment and for me, there still aren't. We watched in disbelief as minutes later Tower 1 collapsed entirely and a whole new sickening wave of shock hit me, and again, all I could say was "NO, NO, NO" as if this surreal moment could somehow be undone. It was like reality had somehow made some great mistake. I later got ready and went to school where we watched the continuing coverage of the events. We watched and talked -tried to rally against the onslaught to our world.
Then life went on, but it was never the same. It has been ten years since that day but still, still, I get a chill from my hands to my head when I see the image of the plane hitting Tower 2.
They were sitting on their bed, concerned looks on their faces as CNN scrolled updates across the screen, and we watched Tower 1 smoking across that huge gash high on the tower. Shock and confusion, the grasping that comes in the face of such an upending swept over me. "Are they sure it was a plane? That seems too big to be from a plane. It could have been a bomb." I said as I was thinking of when the World Trade Center had been bombed in '93. "No, they keep saying it was a plane." Then that question, "Was it an accident? Do they know? I mean, a plane hit the Empire State building in like, the 60's… but that couldn't have been this bad, it was a 737. They had to repair it but it didn't come down." We talked like that for a few minutes, mostly me talking, spouting facts in an attempt to make sense of it all and "Remember mom, how when we went to New York we saw that board about how a plane hit the Empire State Building? Do you remember why? They were off course right?" Why? If it was an accident, how? If it was intentional, who? Is the tower going to collapse? The Empire State building didn't collapse and it was smaller… There were only questions and the image of a burning tower.
Then, all at once, the camera cut to live footage as the news anchor frantically reported what? I have no idea. Whatever was said was rendered immaterial as we saw a glimpse of a plane, the impact, and the fireball that erupted from the side facing the camera. Now we knew. At that point, the question was answered. It wasn't an accident, it was an attack. My heart fell to my stomach. My face strained in shock; eyes wide, mouth open and covered in shock. All we said was "NO!" There were no words for the moment and for me, there still aren't. We watched in disbelief as minutes later Tower 1 collapsed entirely and a whole new sickening wave of shock hit me, and again, all I could say was "NO, NO, NO" as if this surreal moment could somehow be undone. It was like reality had somehow made some great mistake. I later got ready and went to school where we watched the continuing coverage of the events. We watched and talked -tried to rally against the onslaught to our world.
2 comments:
chills. wow. that was some account. i was only in elementary school when it happened so i don't remember much from that day. reading about the affect it had on a high school student really made the entire event real to me.
This post gave me chills. Thank you for a great account of the events that will ever be remembered.
Post a Comment