My 9/11 Story
September 11, 2006 at 3:40 I’d been looking forward to September 11, 2001 for months. My niece Leah was getting married on the 15th in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and my daughter, E-Grrrl, was going to be the flower girl. Not only were we excited about the wedding itself but the opportunity it presented. Scattered up and down the East Coast, my siblings and I rarely saw each other after my parents died years earlier. Without a “home” to go home to for holidays, we all went our own way. The wedding was a chance for family time.
We’d decided to gather at Hilton Head and spend a few days together at the beach in advance of the wedding. Leah worked at a resort there and had gotten great rates on condos for us. Because my son, A, had just started kindergarten and was still settling in, E and I we didn’t want to pull him out of school. Instead E-Grrrl and I would drive down early and E and A would fly down and join us right before the wedding. We’d all drive back together.
I hate to drive and until September 11, 2001, I had never embarked on a major trip by myself. E-Grrrl was on the cusp of her fourth birthday and was still prone to wetting her pants. That morning managing the eight-hour drive by myself with a child with lingering potty-training issues was my biggest concern.
It was a perfect September day—crisp white clouds on deep blue skies. I was ready to head to the beach, ready to see my siblings, ready to celebrate Leah’s marriage. E-Grrrl couldn’t bear being separated from her brother and father and cried as we pulled out of the driveway and waved goodbye.
We were somewhere in North Carolina when the call came. In preparation for my first major solo car trip, I’d finally gotten a cell phone. When it rang, I didn’t even know what I was hearing—an electronic toy? I finally got a clue and pulled off I-95 and answered the phone after it had rung at least a half-dozen times.
E was calling to tell me about the Pentagon and the twin towers. He warned me that I might see troops mobilizing. The enormity of what he was saying slapped all the normality out of my life in an instant. Our country was under attack, and I was hundreds of miles away from my family, alone with my little girl.
Stunned with a jumble of emotions tumbling through my head. Gratitude that E was home and not in his office near D.C. or at the Pentagon. Grief for all those who were. Anxiety that people might start pouring out of D.C. in a panic and clog the highways, preventing E from picking up A. In that moment of fear and confusion, all I wanted to know was that my husband was protecting our son. More than anything, I wanted us all to be together. But what about the wedding? What about the reunion? I debated whether or not to turn around and head home.
It was too much to absorb. What should I tell E-Grrrl? How could I explain? How could anyone explain what had happened?
The rest of the day is broken into shards of memory. Turning the radio on and listening to the horror unfold. Turning the radio off because I didn’t want E-Grrrl to hear too much. Turning it back on because I felt so disconnected by the silence as I headed South on an interstate on a beautiful fall day under an eerily quiet sky, the world seemingly falling apart in my wake.
Crying and driving and trying to put a brave face on for my daughter. Wanting to go home. Wanting to be with E. Wanting someone to hold my hand. I felt an overwhelming urge to exit the highway and find a church where I could gather with others and pray.
I wondered where the president was and why wasn’t he talking. The longer we didn’t hear from him, the worse I felt. What was going on? Rumors were swirling about what had happened, who was responsible, and what was yet to come. Even as the newscasters switched from referring to the events as accidents, and acknowledged they were acts of terrorism, I knew what they really were: an act of war. And I wondered then, and continue to wonder now, who our enemies really are.
Meanwhile, back in the car, E-Grrrl was having bathroom issues and I was constantly in the process of finding a restroom for her, only to have her reject it, get back in the car, and request a rest stop again 10 minutes later. The trip was dragging on and on and on, and I felt mentally and physically stretched thin. A series of violent thunderstorms blew in just as I hit the final leg of the journey. By now it was dark and I could barely see where I was going in the torrential rain and lightning. I’d been on the road about 14 hours, my head throbbing with thought, my eyes weary from having seen too much.
When I finally staggered into the condo, overwrought by all that happened, I knew that somewhere in the car along I-95, I’d crossed a line that would forever divide my life and history into “Before” and “After.” I wept in part because I knew my children would never even remember “Before.” Our life and our world would never, ever be the same.
September 11, 2006
Leftovers
Reader Comments (12)
The only beef I have with you now is your insistance upon pseudonyms. It's not that I want to KNOW you family's names, it's just that constantly referring to them as a pseudonym is just so damned awkward in terms of the flow of the narrative. However, that may just be me. I just need to mention it as a critcism that you may want to think about.
:(