Tell me your 9/11 stories
Each year I re-post the memories which many of you have shared with me of your experiences on 9/11 and I ask the rest of you to please tell me your stories, too.
Ten years after that awful day, I still grieve, as do many of you. And I'm still interested in hearing about where you were that day and your experiences were, whether you were oblivious ( Read more... )
Ten years after that awful day, I still grieve, as do many of you. And I'm still interested in hearing about where you were that day and your experiences were, whether you were oblivious ( Read more... )
In 2001 I was studying to become a teacher and I was on my first placement in August/September of that year. It happened to be in Ashburton, away from all my friends and family, and I was staying in the nurses' hostel across the road from the school. We'd got into a pattern in the mornings where I'd come out of my room around 7.30 and be the one to switch on the TV to see the morning news. That day (it was September 12th for us, though people have forgotten that now) I stumbled blearily out, just as I did every day, but someone else had turned the TV on already. It was unusual enough for me to pay attention but I couldn't quite understand the pictures I was seeing. I didn't know it then but the initial impact had come something like 5 hours previously while we all slept unaware of what was happening, and what I was watching had already become history. It didn't feel like that, though. At the time I felt like I was watching it play out in real time.
I got to school and there were TVs playing everywhere - from the staffroom to the library and even in some classrooms. Absolutely unheard of. I have never before or since seen a TV used in school as a TV rather than as a tool to play videos. The kids were a mixture of excited and traumatised as they watched it. I'm sure many of them really didn't understand what they were seeing, but they all felt the tension among the adults from their parents to the teachers. All Social Studies classes that day were cancelled and the students and teachers discussed what was happening. I've never wanted to teach less and I guess the other teachers felt the same way. However, life had to go on.
Also that day, or maybe the next (it all blurs for me), one of my classes was doing a practice exam. They had to write an piece of creative writing and could choose from one of five topics. Coincidentally one of the topics was 'And then the whole world changed' - I got so many heartbreaking stories from kids trying to make sense of it all. I kept copies of them all, though I haven't been able to reread most of them.
It is the single longest day I've ever had as a teacher, and I wasn't even a real teacher yet, just a student trying to work out how to connect to the kids she teaches. The last thing I remember of that day was lying in bed with the radio on, listening to the announcers who were all very upset as well. One of them said, 'shit, we're living through the first days of World War Three' - it's always stuck with me because I was terrified that was the case as well (and because I'd never before heard anyone swear on air). I felt alone and scared even though it was all taking place so very far away from me. I wished very much that I was back home with my then-fiance. I knew one or two people in New York and was worried about them, having no real concept of where they lived and worked in relation to that area. Another of my fellow students (who was placed at a school a long way from where I was) was from there and I worried also about how she was doing so far away from her friends and family. I learned later that her family were fire fighters and they lost two members.
I didn't know that day, but learned later, that my mother's cousin worked at one of the other buildings in that area and was on his way to work, slightly late, that day. He was on some sort of train that was stopped when it all happened so he never made it to work. If he'd caught the train he was supposed to get he would have been walking through one of those buildings right when it happened.
I remember feeling like it was a surreal sort of dream and that I'd wake up to find it hadn't really happened. Of course that wasn't true, but it was the only way I could go to sleep that night in a world that had changed so very quickly.
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This was very moving to read. Thank you so much for your details.
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I must admit THAT really surprises me. One of the people who told me her story a few years ago, a Canadian, seemed to feel that in spite of her profession as a historian, that 9/11 was just another day to her and no big deal. So the fact that you feel so connected to it, not simply because of the recent NZ earthquakes, but connected enough that the day's events are imprinted on your mind, is really amazing and, honestly, awe-inspiring.
Again - thank you! *HUGE Hugs*
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Second, I was in charge of 12-18 year old kids and I took on a lot of their feelings. Some had very simplistic ideas on it ('I would have got a mattress out and jumped and lived' for example) while others were vividly upset by the hatred displayed. One of the most poignant of the written pieces I got was from a girl who really couldn't understand that hatred. Again, I haven't reread it but I remember the tone of the piece extremely well - it made me cry. Her pain at what she was seeing was so raw.
Third, I had got to know Cristina, my fellow student, really well and she loved New York so much and talked about it so much that it felt like a part of the community we'd been building at Teachers' College.
Fourth, we are such a small country that we tend to look outward to see our place in the world. Because we are so small and so reliant on other countries there is a sense of connectedness to what is going on 'out there.' I went to the movies that weekend (came back to Christchurch to be with people that weekend) and we saw AI. One of the things that upset me most was in their post-apocalyptic version of the world the twin towers were still there. They were the only things that survived and made the space recognisible. After the movie, everyone I was with said exactly the same thing: 'OMG the towers' - most people had strong reactions to what happened.
I admit that I have been a bit jaded by all the coverage year in, year out (we tend to get a week long lead in and it gets a bit much at times). But always on the day (which is never September 12, the day it actually happened, for us) I remember what that day/week was like and I am saddened. This year it took on more poignancy because of our last year (seeing buildings come down and people running for their lives means a lot more now) but also because it's ten years. It's a big number, an important number and I remember that day and reflect a lot on what it's meant.
Lol, I've written you another novel, I'm sorry. I'm just finding it fascinating to work out why it affected me as much as it did.
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LOVE the comment about how your small country looks outward on the world. It's very much in keeping with what our pastor said in church on Sunday the 11th after having just lived in NZ for 2 years. (His 9/11 audio clip should be uploaded soon. You might want to check it out, as I seriously think the first half of it - which is purely about psychology & coping with ongoing trauma - might be quite helpful to you in regards to your recent #eqnz post which we discussed). He also talked about how getting outside the traumatic situation makes it easier to cope because your psyche isn't reacting in crisis mode, but that it also can make the enormity stand out even more when you're not in the middle of it.
Re: the student's comment about the mattress, though. Last night I googled +parachutes +skyscrapers. Found a lot of articles explaining why they can't be used in building fires. It was scary seeing how bad things are in those circumstances that even parachutes can't work. Briefly: the hot air from the flames creates a cyclone effect around the building. One study said that professional skydivers who had extensive ADDITIONAL experience in the VERY different skills necessary to jump from AND *steer* a parachute from a building would have less than a 50% chance of survival if the building is on fire. That's assuming someone experienced in hundreds of jumps who is wearing a parachute had steering capabilities, which the majority *don't*. It's so scary finding out there are no easy answers.
And now I'm crying again. This is a rather emotional time of year for me, can you tell? :)
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