Memories of 9/11 - part one

The day started typically, the alarm clock at 7, a sleepy arm reaching to turn on the tv, and the Today Show filling the bedroom with sound. Usually, I am rushing around getting dressed so that I can be in my Princeton office by 8:30. But on September 11, 2001, I had a 9:15 AM appointment with my doctor and was afforded the luxury of moving a little slower. I only remember one thing about the pre-attack portion of the Today show, and that was the promise that Arnold Scwartzenegger was going to be on shortly, to promote his new movie, “Collateral Damage.” I took a longer than usual shower and came back to the bedroom and the TV and Matt and Katie just in time to see a shot of the World Trade Center in flames. “This must be from the movie,” I thought. “Great special effect, it looks so real.” Then, as the shadow of another plane hitting the other tower crossed the screen, I realized that Katie Couric was screaming, and that this was no movie. This was real. I stood there, wrapped in a towel, hair dripping, staring at the unbelievable. It took a few minutes for me to shake myself out of shock and get dressed. All the while I stared at the television. People were talking, but I don’t remember what they were saying. Somewhere in the back of my head a little reminder was going off – “doctor appointment, doctor appointment…”

I arrived at the doctor’s office to find the staff in tears – both nurses had family members working in New York and were unable to contact them. There was no television, so they had WPLJ radio playing over the office intercom. Scott and Todd’s morning show was on, and they were describing what they were seeing both on their television screens and from whatever windows they could get at.

My doctor came bustling in, hugged her staff members and announced that one of her children was also in the city that day. Her face turned very serious as she told her staff that they needed to be strong and brave, to do their jobs like wartime nurses. She told them that during WWII she had seen how medical personnel set aside their personal worries to attend to the business at hand. She said it was time for them to do likewise. She then hugged them again and motioned me into the exam room.

At that moment, the horrified screams and shouts of the radio deejays told us that the first tower was falling. “It’s gone,” they kept saying. “The tower is gone…”

My exam passed in a blur, my health issues seeming insignificant. Going in to the office seemed a pointless waste of time. I sat in my car in the doctor’s parking lot wondering what to do when my cell phone rang. It was my sister, hysterical. She was unable to reach her husband, a supervisor at UPS in Manhattan. Remembering that sometimes he would take deliveries, and that the World Trade Center had been on his route, she was beside herself. I needed to be with her.