story10707.xml

story10707.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-07-23

Just 4 weeks prior to the morning of 9/11 my husband had given the gift of life. He donated 64% of his liver to my father. The morning of September 11, we had arrived at Lawrece Memorial Hospital for a follow up appointment. My husband was very weak and frail at the time. As we walked into the lobby for admitting I noticed several people gathered around a television. I could see it from where we stood waiting our turn in line and although I could not hear it the image was enough. A plane had flown into the world trade center. As my husband finish his paperwork people were speaking ot each other of how there had been a terrible "accident". Immediatly I said to my husband "The World Trade Center has been attacked". Im not sure how I knew, I just did. It didnt seem reasonable that a plane would "accidently" hit this enormous building... I couldnt concieve it as an accident, as an "uhoh". We stepped into the elevator and proceeded to the next waiting room for tests. The staff and other patients were chatting about the event. Just then, as if a confirmation of my gut instince, the theory I had over this being intentional... another plane hit. The feeling in this room is for the most part unexplainable. Jaws dropped, eyes welling with tears, people obviously struggling to catch their breath, the most uncomfortable silence I personaly had ever felt. It was apparent to us all in that room, at this point some 40 patients and staff... in complete shock knowing that we are witnessing an American tragedy and yet are unable to help our fellow Americans... our fellow humans. We watched in horror as another plane was announced to have been flown into the Pentagon, as people in the world trade center began to make the most horific choices to try and either save their lives or end their misery, im not sure. Some of the sequences are now blurry to me... shock seems to do that to a person. Fear sets in and confusion takes control over ones rational thoughts. Personaly I had never been prepped for such a thing... not to witness it, and certainly not what steps to take next. The thought of my children, how they were all in seperate schools at the time, if I should leave and go get them, news reports informed us the national guard would be visible on highways and any other place they deemed nessesary. Were we here in Boston in danger? Would I make it to my children? If I was able to get them, were was I supposed to go? My parents, did they need me? How could I get to all of the people I needed to be with in a relativly short period of time?

In that room, the day of September 11, 2001 some 40 plus people shared a terrifying, horrible experience. I dont know that I would remember these people if I saw them again. Im almost certain that fear takes on a different facial expression than what one would carry another day, in another time. I can tell you that we had for at least a fraction of time a bond to one another that I know will always last.
Im fortunate enough to say I did not personaly know anyone who was in the buildings at the time, or on the planes or ground.

I know we all changed that day. Images are seered into our minds, feelings of helplessness have never run so deep, pride of being an American never before so heavily felt amoung a nation, wishing we could turn back time, change things somehow.


I will never know the pain those directly involved suffer.