Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?

September 11th, 2001

I can't remember the exact details of that day in my life. If I had realized while they were happening how profound the events that were taking place on that day were I would have tried to remember more details. I was a month shy of 18, a Senior in high school.

That morning I was sitting in my Medical Technology class, at the vocational school I attended, when the instructor came in and said that she had to tell us something. She said that the World Trade Center in New York had been hit by two airplanes.

My first thought was, "What's the World Trade Center? Should I know about that?" The seriousness in her voice and the grave look on her face told me that this wasn't your typical tidbit of interesting news that a teacher sometimes shares with her students. This was something more momentous. I don't remember too much about the rest of the class. I know that we didn't watch it on TV, but I don't know how much of a class we had either. I do know I felt desperate to know more about this occurrence that was important enough for our teacher to announce it to the class.

I wasn't too interested in watching or reading the news back then. But when we were released from class, I went home for my lunch break, eager to find out more about what was happening. I remember turning on the radio in the car and not being able to find any music on any station. It was all news coverage of the events unfolding-on every station. Now I really knew this was something exceptional.

By the time class was over and I got home it had to have been 11 or 11:30am. I turned on the TV. There I saw what had happened on that bright September morning. On almost every channel, the plane crashes, building collapses, and terror were being replayed. And then I realized.....this was a major disaster, and nothing would be the same from that moment on.

I was engrossed. My emotions escalated from curiosity to fear, to disbelief, back to fear.

I watched the first plane crash-what an terrible accident......

I saw the second plane crash-This isn't right. Oh my gosh.....we are being attacked. This is a war on America!  

People were jumping from the buildings! How bad must it be for people to JUMP out of a building 80 or 90 floors up? These poor people are so desperate they are jumping to their deaths.How can this be happening in New York? In America? I just could not believe what I was seeing and hearing.

I saw the Pentagon had been hit-We are at WAR....Oh my Lord, we are at WAR!

I watched the South Tower collapse-WHAT?!?! How could this be happening? I can't believe this is happening.

I watched the North Tower collapse-It is literally THE END OF THE WORLD as we know it. Fear. Despair. More Fear. 

I watched the people in New York running from the enormous clouds of debris and smoke. Their entire bodies covered in ash. They were running for their lives. The smoke/debris cloud was flooding the streets and pouring out over the city in a giant wave. People were walking out of the chaos with wounds on their heads and faces, bleeding and out of breath.

The mass exodus from lower Manhattan was astonishing to me. People were just getting out of there. They didn't care about what they had to leave behind, they were desperate to get away from the chaos and confusion. To see the despair and desperation of the faces of so many thousands of people really hit me hard. There were so many victims. No one had signed up for this. We are supposed to be safe here in America. And now nothing seemed secure or certain.

I think the emotion that impacted me the most on September 11th 2001 was my own fear. I literally thought this was the beginning of the end of the world. At the tender age of 17 I had began to dabble in Protestantism during my last few years in high school and had "left" the Catholic Church (because of a boy-who is now my husband-who is now Catholic, Praise God!). I was reading the Left Behind series and was fearful that "the rapture" was coming next. I was so young, and would have a whole different outlook if it happened now, but the fear was so real.

Over the next days and weeks I slowly began to see that I was going to be okay, that America was okay. I finally began to recognize the significant impact this event had on so many lives. I watched the news coverage any chance I got. My fear and disbelief turned to sorrow and acceptance. It is still a very concrete part of my memory. I will never forget.