Saturday 11 September 2010

9/11 Remember this day

I remember this day so clearly nine years ago. I had finished work early and driven to Tesco.

I parked, got out my shopping list, grabbed a trolley, shopped and came out of the store again. The sky was a vivid blue, cumulus clouds towered above. I remember lifting the tailgate of my hatchback and looking up at the blueness and thinking: That's odd, the planes are turning around. It didn't seem significant, just something slightly out of the ordinary. I thought of Lockerbie, briefly, and then turned back to the task in hand.

I finished unpacking my shopping, returned my trolley, got into the driving seat of my car and switched on the radio. I buckled my seatbelt carefully over my five-months pregnant tummy.

The newsreader was reporting something about a plane crashing into the World Trade Centre. Gosh, I thought, how terrible.

I drove home, switched on the TV and tuned in to the BBC and then CNN. The World Trade Centre was on fire. I telephoned Mum, eyes on the screen.

"Have you any idea what's going on?" I asked her, "An aeroplane has crashed into the World Trade Centre."

"No," she replied, just as the second plane swooped towards the second tower, made an adjustment on its approach and sank fatally in like a knife.

"You need to switch on your telly," I said, "something awful is happening."

We didn't know then how awful but I remember sitting with a cup of tea watching all the news channels alternately. I remember I was watching one of the US news channels, the burning towers visible over the reporter's shoulder, when the first tower crumpled and fell.

I wondered, then, what sort of a world I was bringing a child into.

7 comments:

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  2. Yes, imprinted on my brain too. Just had G9 and was in bed nursing her when I saw the second plane hit 'live'. It was incomprehensible. Terrible. Tragic. Man's inhumanity to man showcased.

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  3. How poignant, Mags: "I wondered, then, what sort of a world I was bringing a child into."

    We wondered the same thing when we were first married and thinking about starting a family.

    It seems things have only gotten worse. So very sadly!

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  4. Mags, I also remember that morning very well.

    Try as I might, I cannot properly write about my memories of that day.

    It got very quiet in the ensuing days, and eventually the scent of the fire spread across the city.

    And...lots of firemen from my neighborhood station died, and when I took orange juice to the station house, I saw a handsome strong man cry.

    And I could go on..

    Tonight, when I left the downtown shop where I work, my mates and I looked at the sky and saw the commemorative parallel blue laser lights reaching high into the sky.

    Yes. That day changed lots of all of us. xo

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  5. I too was shopping, driving home on a wonderful hot sunny day, a bright blue sky, and had the car radio on. "Some light aircraft has lost control," I thought. I too was subsequently glued to the news channels as the true horror unfolded. The world changed for ever that day I believe, as it did too on 3rd September 1940 and I wondered in my child ignorance why such solemn faces were crowded around the radio. And it goes on. So much hatred; whatever has happened to love?

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  6. I've just been reading notsosinglemums blog, she was pregnant too and I've said similar on hers, not knowing what world you were going to bring your child into must have been terrifying. Living so close to heathrow the planes were one of the first things I noticed too, as I was on my way home from school, they were all landing and none taking off. Surreal.

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  7. We'll never forget that day, we're Americans and we were in England, happened to see a television in a teashop we were in and saw it. My heart stood still and i knew that things would never be the same again. I hate the wars we're involved in, but they were inevitable.
    Each time something happens now we wonder if it's terrorist related. What a terrible way to have to live.

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