Remembering 9/11

Can you believe it's been 8 years since the 9/11 attacks? I still remember it as if it was yesterday. I still remember what I was doing, how I felt and praying that night in hopes of finding survivors from the Twin Towers. This is the first time I just started crying for our country and for the people I never met.

It's funny, but for some reason, I remember looking at the sunrise that morning, it was a bright orange and beautiful. I was admiring it while I was driving to work at 7 o'clock in the morning. I was working at the Vermont Teddy Bear Company and the day was just another typical work day. I put on my head phones while I was getting ready to start my daily sewing, listening to Howard Stern. I remember when the first plane hit the towers that Howard had mention what had happen. It was awful, but no one seem to be to concern. I thought it was an accident. I honestly never even knew what the Twin Towers were until that morning. Everyone at work started talking about it at our stretch break. Then after the stretch break we went back to work, I put my head phones on, and shortly after, Howard announced another plane hit the towers. He said this is an attack on America. I was so scared. What was happening. New York City is not that far from Vermont. I was in a total trance and just listen to the radio and my sewing had gone on auto pilot, I was not even thinking about my sewing.

Finally, we had our first break. I went outside to talk to other co-workers, everyone was talking about what was going on. We all were in disbelief and wondering what's going to happen next. After break, I went back to sewing. I couldn't stop listening to the radio, I even remembered at times I stopped sewing for awhile just trying to comprehend what was going on. You see, in our department, we weren't allowed to "stop" working, we would get spoken too, but at this point, I don't think I even knew that I was stopping. We then heard how a plane hit the pentagon, so at this point I was terrified. I didn't want to be at work, I wanted to be with my family. No one knew what was going to happen.

Around 10:30am, we were told that there was a TV on upstairs and anyone can go up and watch if we wanted to, and of course we all did. At this point they were talking about the plane going down in Pennsylvania, and there were a lot of us quietly watching the TV in a small room. We were told, that we can leave if we wanted to but we would have to use our own vacation time. I thought, I don't care, I can't work right now anyway. Though I stayed in the small room for another 20 minutes watching TV. Then, a lady came in and said, we're closing for the day, you all can leave and will be paid for the rest of the day. After that was said, we all, got up and got our stuff and left at 10:50am. I didn't go home, I went straight to my mom's work. I remembered driving down the road and stopping at red lights, and I could here the other car passengers and drivers listening to their radio, listening to the horrific broadcast. I got to my mom's work, gave her big hug. Told her that we were dismissed from work and wanted to see how she was doing. She was just like the rest of us, disbelief, scared and sad.

I remember that night, we all went outside and looked to the sky. It was so quiet, no plane in sight. The only type of traffic we'd hear in the sky would be jets, and I can tell you, when we heard a jet go by, we surely looked to the sky. I stayed the night at my parents house that night, and prayed, and cried myself to sleep.