Memories of 9/11 - part two

I called my office to let them know I was going to staying with my sister until she heard from her husband. As it turned out, they were sending everyone home anyway. At my sister's house, we spent the rest of the afternoon riveted to the television - in almost complete silence. We just could not believe what we were seeing. Toward the late afternoon, her kids began coming in from school, full of anxiety, wanting to know if their dad had been heard from - what was going on. Each of them seemed to know someone their age that had a parent or loved one working in or visiting the city that day. My two younger children, who were in high school at the time, reported several classmates breaking into hysterical sobs - realizing that mom or dad worked in the World Trade Center. They reported that from a particularly high vantage point in Monroe Township, the plume of smoke was clearly visible.

I stayed with my sister until we finally heard from her husband - he and some fellow UPS workers had seen what they could of the devastation from the roof of their building, and then started the long trek home. They walked, they got on ferries, they were directed to buses. He wasn't home yet, but he was enroute. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

I returned to my own house to find that almost the entire high school football team, and a good deal of the cheerleaders (my daughter was a cheerleader) was gathered there. This normally boisterous group was subdued, upset and confused - just clinging to each other in mutual grief and fear. My oldest daughter finally got through on the phone from her dorm room at Montclair University - she could see the smoke and an eerie glow from her window. Her boyfriend, an EMT in Old Bridge had already left with the rig to join the long line of ambulances that were ready to help to legions of hurt and wounded that never came. A night of not much sleep rolled over us. Soon, we would learn just how terrible the toll hade been, who among our community was nevr coming home from work. Our hearts wouold break and our anger would rise. But on the night of 9-11-01 I tried to sleep as the numbing feelings of shock and helpless disbelief coursed through me.

And today, 5 years later, I can still feel it. I will feel it the rest of my life