As we near the second anniversary of September 11, I find my thoughts wandering back to that awful day more and more often. My co-workers and I have been reminiscing about where we were and what we were doing that day. My workplace was evacuated as we were less than two miles from the Y-12 nuclear weapons facility in Oak Ridge, TN. I was one of the last ones out of the building, and it totally creeped me out because it is usually filled at that that time of day with about 500 people. There were military patrols on the roof and the roadblocks were being set up as I left the city. That's when it started to hit me.
When I got home, I called my mother. My parents don't watch TV much at all, and I didn't know if they had heard yet. They did. And mother and I spent an hour or so talking about the horrors. My focus was on the rescuers. As a former paramedic, those were my brothers and sisters in the wrecked buildings ... my brothers and sisters dying. But I held it together. I wasn't hysterical or distraught. I dealt with this tragedy like I do any other ... I intellectualize it, and then I can handle it.
My son arrived home from school later that day. I had turned the TV off by then, so I could assess his reactions from the information he was given at school, and talk without the media hysteria blaring away. He was calm, surprisingly so considering he was weathering the aftermath of his own personal tragedy at the time. Then he asked me, “Mom ... is it OK if I go outside and play? I mean ... is it safe to be out there?”
I assured him that yes, we are safe here and it was OK for him to be outside. New York and Washington are very far away. He accepted my word on this and went on out.
That was when I lost it. I turned the TV back on, and that's when the reports started coming in of the firefighters, police officers and paramedics that were caught in the towers when they collapsed. My brothers and sisters. Combined with seeing the effect of events so far away on a child right here, right now, causing him to be afraid to go outside in his own neighborhood ... I lost it. And I cried for all the lost souls, hopes and dreams. I cried for the lost innocence of the nations children. I cried for the families torn apart. I cried in mourning for the nation we once were, and never will be again.
A part of me is re-living the events of 9/11 ... the focus of my memories is on the brave deaths of my brothers and sisters ... and how the events were viewed through the eyes of a child.
« Hush me up!
Posted by
LissaKay on 08/09/03 at 05:07 AM in
Our World
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