I was working the early morning shift at Channel 5, directing the morning news updates. In between the updates I would go out to our Master Control Room and chat with the operator, Gilbert, we called him Gil. It was still 15 minutes before the next news update and we were out there laughing and goofing off like most mornings, when a special report broke in. The laughing stopped as Gil was trying to figure out why he didn't get a warning about the break-in like he normally does.
When the images came up of what was taking place, it didn't seem real. I remember thinking how does a pilot mess up that bad that he flies directly into a building. That doesn't seem right.
10 minutes later there were about 20 people crowded around us in the control room. It was very quiet as we watched what was unfolding right in front of our eyes. Someone spoke up and said this has to be a terrorist attack and I think that's when it hit me. I felt scared, I felt unsure of what was going to happen next. I called Darric, I called my mom. I needed to hear the voices of my loved ones.
I got out of work at the TV station and headed to my second job at the bank, where we spent most of the morning running back and forth between the our teller station and the break room to watch the news updates. Some customers that had come through didn't even know anything was happening, we were breaking the news to them that our country was under attack.
We ended up shutting down the bank early, as most business' did that day.
I went home...hugged my husband...said lots of prayers and was glued to the television for the rest of the night. Even when I woke up at 2:00am, I turned on CNN to see if anything else had happened. I couldn't imagine what all the people involved were going through. Couldn't imagine.....
I was child-free when those planes hit the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and crashed into that field in Pennsylvania. People who had school aged kids at that time were forced to explain it to their curious, scared children on the fly. The rest of us are trying to figure it out as our little ones begin to notice the world around them and wonder what's going on when their parents stop, remember, and shed tears on the anniversary of September 11Th.
All week I've been trying to decide if I want to tell Jordan about that fateful day. He's going to end up seeing those dreadful images on TV at some point before the weekend is over and what is he going to think of it? Will he ask us about it? Then again...maybe that's my answer right there. Maybe I should wait for him to ask. Why would I want to put the worry of 'bad' people hurting innocent ones into his mind? Why would I want to change the way he looks at planes flying over our house? He'll never be able to see those towers in real life. When he hears "Twin Towers" it will be referring to tragedy and disaster and not the triumph and wonder that they represented.
Tomorrow, on this the 10Th anniversary of the last morning those "Twin Towers" stood tall in America, I'm sure I will take lots of moments to reflect on how things have changed since then. I will say prayers and shed tears for the fallen. I will thank a serviceman. And if my 6 year old is curious why things seem different tomorrow I will tell him, but for now if he's OK with it, I'm going to let him live his simple, carefree life as a 6 year old should.
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