Remembering

Nearly everyone who was around on September 11, 2001, has a picture in their mind that represents what they experienced the day of the terrorist attacks. It might be the firefighters raising the flag on the rubble of the World Trade Center, the image of the towers crumbling to the ground, or the faces of people running to escape the clouds of smoke and ash that blew through the streets of lower Manhattan when the towers fell.

While I can bring up those images in my mind, the one that haunts me is the sight of a signboard on an exit from the New York State Thruway that said, “ALL ENTRANCES AND EXITS TO NEW YOUR CITY ARE CLOSED.” And behind the sign in the distance hung a huge plum of white smoke.

At the time, I was working for the American Cancer Society in New York and New Jersey. I supported staff and volunteers in both states and happened to have two meetings I was asked to attend on September 11. For no particular reason that I can remember, I chose the meeting being held in Albany rather than the one set in New York City.

I was nearly to Albany when my cell phone rang, and a coworker told me that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. I turned on the car radio news to hear that a second plane had also crashed into the Towers and a third plane had crashed into the Pentagon. Giving in to my first instinct, I called my mother-in-law. My husband, her only son, was an airline pilot and knowing she always panicked when there was an airplane incident, I wanted to ease her mind that he wasn’t involved in any of the crashes. I knew that because he had been scheduled to take a flight into Washington D.C. the night before, but for some reason had been taken off that flight and assigned to one going to Guadalajara, Mexico. While it would take him a week to get home, he was safe.

Not knowing what else to do, I continued on to the office in Albany. When I arrived, all the staff was in the meeting room, clustered around the television watching the news coverage of the burning towers. As we watched, we saw the towers collapsing, in what seemed like slow motion. Everyone was stunned. Clearly there would be no business meeting that day. Staff with children left the office to go to their schools to pick up their kids, hug them and take them home. I only wanted to be home myself so I made the two-hour drive back to Princeton.

In a strange twist of fate, the day was beautiful. Crystal clear blue sky without a single cloud. I realized later that it was also extra clear because there were no airplanes in the sky. All had been grounded wherever they were when it was clear we had suffered a terrorist attack. It was on the drive home that I saw the sign, “ALL ENTRANCES AND EXITS TO NEW YORK CITY ARE CLOSED,” and the cloud of smoke.

It’s been 20 years. The son of a coworker was killed in the tower. His daughter just turned 20 a few weeks ago. There are nearly 3000 more personal stories of loss on that day. It’s appropriate that this event, the people who were killed and those left behind be remembered, particularly this year.  For me, though, since that day, whenever I see a digital clock with the time “9:11,” I remember.

Susan Kirkland

Photo by History in HD on Unsplash