9/11

[katierocket]

anyone see the pictures of the rememberance?
really sad.
I still remember so clearly where I was when I heard the first news reports. Seems like yesterday

Heard a newsflash interrupting radio 4 on the car radio when driving to collect dd from school. They said at first a plane had accidently flown into WTC but then 2nd happened. On a personal note my younger brother had died (from cancer) on 5 September and we were in the grieving limbo-land waiting for his funeral which was arranged for 15 September. My parents had just been to see my brother's body immediately before it happened. So for my family it was even more surreal, and we knew what it was like to be grieving for a brother, son, husband, etc. Really felt for the families who lost someone and 9/11 is inextricably linked now with the anniversary of my brother's death.

We were just about to leave to house to go out and a newflash came on, I remember DH saying "Lets see what this is about first"
Well like everyone else we felt like we were watch a Hollywood blockbuster and sat transfixed to the TV.
I was waiting in the car for DH on Homebase (DIY shop) carpark when the first tower came down and remember exactly the feeling of total horror. We were later in Ikea and there was TV on in a display area and I just couldn't watch it, I wasn't the only person there with tears in my eyes.
Just sitting here recalling all this makes me feel very sad and very scared of the world our children will inherit(sp?) from us.

I had just had dd on the 10th and was lying in bed after the c-section. My cousin came to visit and told us about the WTC so we went to the tv at the end of the ward and I remember holding dd really tightly and not believing it. Dd's god mother, my oldest friend, lives in Manhatten and so I started worrying about her. All phone lines were dead. The next day (12th) my friend's picture was in our local paper because she'd managed to get a message to her family via the media that she was ok. My dad left the paper on the end of my bed because I was asleep. When I woke up I saw the paper and her photo and I just assumed she'd died. The I read the headline "I'm OK" and I cried my eyes out with relief.
It's a day full of such mixed emotion for us. In some ways I felt cocooned from it all as I was in hospital and not glued to the tv which I would have been if I'd have been at home.

I was in new york with my ds and mother without my dh. My father was booked on a flight to washington dc that day. My best friend was supposed to be having breakfast in the wtc that morning, but didn't because her dh had left it to late to make the reservation (to celebrate their anniversary) and couldn't get a table. Another close friend came out of the wtc subway station just as the 2nd plane hit (a piece of the plane missed him by 20 ft.). My friend that I was staying with lost 2 childhood friends so she was in tears during my entire stay.
And the worst part of it all was coming back to england and hearing people say that the americans deserved it. How could anyone be so thoughtless and cruel. All those people were someone's loved ones.

I am shocked SofiaAmes ... I don't know anyone who would have said such a thing ... were they friends of yours saying that the americans deserved it or was it in the media?

sofiaI had a similar experience to yours, i.e. was in NY with ds, no dh. Worst day of my life even though I didn't know anyone who died. I felt relieved to return to the UK, because people here were mostly removed from the tragedy. Sympathetic and generous, but in a distanced wayand that helped me move on. Having been around New Yorkers who were all in the same mental state I was in was way too intense. And the collective fear that something new was going to happen was even worse.

I remember I was so depressed and past anxiety that I shuffled around the city in a fearless daze because I didn't even care about my safety.

Yes, the comments about how the Americans deserved their tragedy (mostly from the media, especially the papers that I like, such as the Guardian) stung, but people could say that because it didn't happen to them, and they were safely far away from it. And in a strange way those kinds of comments comforted me because I knew it was possible to get to a mental place where you could view the tragedy in such a way that you could essentially "not care" and just see it in some kind of theoretical/politcal light. I really wanted to get to that place, because I was gutted & fearful & couldn't imagine ever feeling normal again.