9/11

Yesterday was September 11th. Nine years have passed since the attack on our country. And every year I've been surprised at how much I hate and dread that day and the memories it holds.

People posted where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the World Trade Center on Facebook. It was a topic of discussion on the radio and TV. I suppose it might always be that way on 9/11.

I was by myself in Walmart yesterday, thinking about 9/11, lost in my own train of thought, near tears as I wandered around the aisles aimlessly.

And even though I've posted this on my now defunct private blog and on Facebook, I'm going to post it here. Just because I want to, even though I know some of you have read it once or twice before. Feel free to skip it. Writing it all out makes me feel better; a catharsis of sorts.

Written on Thursday, September 11, 2008

Terror
Tuesday, September 11, 2001

It started off as a normal day when I woke up that fateful Tuesday. I got up, got ready, and headed out the door for work around 7:30. I drove my green Honda one mile to the Bowie Park and Ride lot, taking advantage of the free parking, and boarded the public transportation Metrobus. I had arrived early, like I always did, to ensure I'd get a seat on the bus. I hated having to stand and hold on to the handles for dear life, desperately trying to keep my footing as the bus lurched back and forth. The bus took me and many other working professionals to the closest Metro Station in New Carrollton, seven and a half miles from my hometown. I bought my round trip ticket to ride the subway and headed toward the turnstile, shoving my ticket into the machine and picking it up as I walked through. This particular station was at the end of the Orange Line, so those of us who gathered around the subway cars were entering an empty train. I sat down and listened to the mechanical woman's voice announce "Doors Closing" and the chimes that followed. We began the journey to D.C., starting off above ground in the suburbs and quickly disappearing underground as we approached the city. I rode for 20 minutes or so before we arrived at my stop, L 'Enfant Plaza. I walked quickly toward the exit, and headed up the escalator to the street level.

This routine was something I did three days a week most weeks. I had been assigned by my agency to work as a sign language interpreter for the Federal Highway Administration's office, held inside the U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) Headquarters. I pulled my badge that showed I was a contractor out of my bag and put it around my neck. I entered the building and took the elevator up to the fourth floor. It was nearing 9 o'clock, the time I was supposed to be there. I entered the office and headed toward the back where my desk was. I sat down in my chair and pulled up the weekly schedule on the computer, checking to see what was going on that day. My co-worker, Cari, was already on an assignment. She worked here five days a week, from 8:30 to 5, while I only worked three days, 9 to 3. The other two days I worked wherever I was sent by my agency. Since there wasn't anything scheduled for me to do right away, as there often time wasn't, I checked my email, turned on my Instant Messenger so a deaf employee could get in touch with me, and waited to be needed.

Not long after I arrived, a man who shared the same office space got a phone call. I could hear the astonishment in the tone of his voice. When he hung up, he looked at me and said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.

What? My brain could not compute. I wondered if a small airplane was being flown by an amateur pilot who somehow flew into a skyscraper. How could that happen? I pictured this small airplane destroyed but the building suffering only some broken windows, maybe some smashed metal.

Another phone call. It was not just one plane, but two now have crashed. In my gut, I knew this was bad. I tried to check several news websites, CNN and The Washington Post, and the front pages were mostly blank, with a cryptic message about reports coming soon. What was going on?

At 9:37, a plane crashed into the Pentagon and chaos ensued in Washington. There were reports of a car bomb at the U.S. State Department's HQ and fires on the Washington Mall, which the man at the desk near me received phone calls about. These incidents ended up being false. Then there were reports that everyone in a federal building was to evacuate the city. I honestly wondered if this was the end of the world.

I tried calling my family several times but the phone lines were jammed. It was difficult to get through. When I finally did, I told them where I was and what was happening with me. My family already knew about the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and had been so worried about me, not knowing my schedule and where exactly I was, just that I was in D.C., and afraid because they knew I worked at the Pentagon on occasion. Once they knew I was okay, my dad wanted to jump in his car to come and get me, even though news reporters were telling people not to drive into the city. I told him to wait, unsure of what to do.

After I got off the phone with them, I called my boyfriend, Raymond, in California. He was still in bed when I called. My voice shaking, I told him what little I knew, about planes crashing into buildings and bombs. He immediately began worrying. Cari came into the office and so I quickly got off the phone. Raymond ended up telling his parents and they turned on the TV and saw the news reports. It didn't even cross my mind that this was national news.

Cari told me that Metro had shut down all subway and bus services. I was frightened. How am I supposed to get out of here? She was terrified and wanted us to leave the building right away. In a daze, I followed her outside, unsure where we would go. Crowds of people wandered the streets, everyone in shock and fear. No one could help but look up into the sky, wondering if we'd see a plane headed toward us. The Pentagon was just two and a half miles away. I did not want to be outside. I felt like we were sitting ducks. Panic and terror filled my chest and thankfully Cari decided she wanted us to go back inside the building. When we did, we found out that Metro had reopened (if they had even closed at all, I am not sure what was rumor and what was true), and would only close the Pentagon Station. Roads and bridges near the burning Pentagon were closed as well. I grabbed my two-way pager and sent a text message to my parents, telling them I was getting out of here and my dad did not need to come and get me.

People poured into the subway station, and Cari and I made our way down to the train. I was afraid to ride, knowing that if anything happened in this underground tunnel, we would probably not get out alive.

People from the D.C. area are not known for being very friendly. Subway rides were lonely experiences as everyone pretended they were the sole person on the train. We looked down at our feet, or read our books and newspapers, avoiding eye contact with those around us. It was such a cold feeling. But this time, there was something different. It was eerily quiet as we all sat, lost in our thoughts, in shock at was was happening in our world. You could see the fear and concern in each pair of eyes and the longing to just be home, home with our families, praying we'd be safe. Some people murmured softly into their cell phones as they finally connected with loved ones. As soon as the train emerged into daylight from the underground tunnel, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was close to home.

Thankfully, Cari was headed for the same Metro stop that I was and she had driven her car there. She said she'd drive me to my car at the Park and Ride, so I wouldn't have to wait for the bus or have my dad come to pick me up. This lot was on her way home. I was grateful for that. The receptionist at our agency called each of the interpreters who were in or near D.C. to make sure we were safe. No one had been at the Pentagon. One of them, however, had been at the National Security Agency, interpreting, if you can believe this, a lecture on terrorism. She was immediately escorted out of the building when the reports of the morning came in because she, like the rest of us at our agency, did not have clearance to hear classified information.

I got to my car, thanked Cari for driving me, and drove home. When I walked in the door, I saw the TV replaying the plane crashes and the collapses of the World Trade Center towers. Those scenes haunt me to this day. My family hugged me, telling me how scared and worried they had been. My dad said he would have come to get me, no matter what officials or reporters said. The five of us gathered together, thankful to be safe, sound, and whole.

The rest of the day I was in a daze, tears welling up over and over as I thought of the people and families who had not been as fortunate. I knew my experience, my fear, was nothing compared to the 3,000 people who died, leaving their families behind in overwhelming grief, and the thousands of people directly affected by this. Who would have thought this could happen to America? But God is sovereign. He is in control. It was a comfort to know that my eternal home is with the Lord and that there will never be this kind of pain and suffering, no acts of war or terrorism, or any other sin man brings once I am home.

Raymond had already been uneasy with me working all around D.C.; being sent to new locations and meeting new people constantly. September 11th only made it worse. Until I moved away, he constantly worried about my safety there.

My agency canceled all jobs for the next day so that everyone could stay home. I was grateful to not have to go back to D.C. right away. When I went to bed that night, I prayed that God would keep us safe. All across America, people had been shaken up. I prayed God would give us peace as a nation and use this tragedy to bring people to Him.

A few days later, I wrote about the events in a journal I was writing to Raymond, a journal I would present to him when we got married. The last line of that entry says, "I thank my Lord for keeping us together one more day."

When I think of 9/11, not only do I remember the events of this day, but also the anthrax attack that occurred a week later. It felt like evil was everywhere, even though I knew it always was and always has been since the Fall of Man. But evil was so much more real to me during this time. The anthrax event was scary because I had interpreted at the post office in D.C. where people died not two weeks before it happened. Some of my fellow co-workers had been there more recently than that and had to be on the antibiotics just in case they had come into contact with the anthrax.

And then, just over a year later, we had the D.C. sniper attacks. Who on earth could have imagined we'd be fearful to pump gas into our cars, or walk across a parking lot? Gas stations started putting up giant plastic blue tarps around the pumps to make people feel safer. People had been gunned down while they were doing the most mundane things like putting gas in their car or walking to their car from the store. One day I was interpreting a real estate licensing class when a woman who was taking the class got a phone call on her cell while we were on a break. She listened for a minute and then panicked, saying, "My son goes to that school!" Her son was safe but another boy had not been. The sniper decided to shoot a 13 year-old boy on his way to school. I froze when I heard the name of the school- Benjamin Tasker Middle School. For 6 years my family and I lived in a townhouse community across the street from that school. We had moved away to a town about 20 miles north just 5 months before the shooting. That was the middle school my sisters and I would have gone to if we were not homeschooled. I couldn't imagine still living there, thinking of the nightmare it must be to get home with all of the police and news media. But most importantly, it struck me that nowhere was safe. This was insane. It was hard not to be afraid. I'd walk to my car in a zigzag, sometimes even ducking my head and darting my eyes around, watching in fear. It was such a relief when the two men were caught.

Sometime after 9/11 I was on another interpreting assignment. I don't remember where I went, other than it was in D.C. and it was a tall building; it may have been a government office. I remember following a deaf woman to her desk in her office. There were large windows just past her desk. What I saw stunned me. There lay the Pentagon directly below us, in full view, construction equipment everywhere as they rebuilt the area. It was so close to us! I asked her, "Did you witness the plane crash?" She told me no, that she had been in the bathroom at that moment. She had no idea it happened, and since she couldn't hear the alarms and warning bells echoing throughout the building, she did not know she was to get out of the building until she left the bathroom. It was quickly realized that there had to be a better system, so that any deaf people inside the building could receive emergency warnings as quickly as someone who can hear can.

9/11 changed protocol everywhere. It changed the way we fly. It changed security procedures in government buildings. The Pentagon had been difficult enough to get into, now it was practically impossible. I rarely went on assignment there, but when I did, two forms of photo ID were required. It was not something I normally had, but thankfully my DOT badge was enough to count for the second ID. I had to give myself an hour or more to go through security before the scheduled assignment time.

This all happened years ago, and yet every year on the anniversary of 9/11 my stomach churns as I remember. Movies have been made and I don't want to watch them. I feel physically ill, my stomach hurts, my skin is clammy, and my mouth turns dry. Am I always going to feel this way? I don't want to rehash this year after year. But I do want my kids to know about these events, even though I may cry when I try to explain it. The thing is, we are never truly safe. And this place is not our home. But while I am here on earth, I must trust God to keep me in His hands, no matter the circumstances around me. I must cast all my worries, troubles and cares on Him. He is greater than all the terrorists in the world. He has a plan. I should not fear.

I feel a bit ridiculous even posting this. I'm being too dramatic. I'm being silly. I want to delete this whole thing. And yet these are my real thoughts and I feel somewhat safe posting them and sharing with you, even though I feel hesitant at the same time. I end up rethinking blog posts and deleting them or leaving them unpublished far too often... Afraid to be the real Sunny. Afraid of what people might think or say.

So here goes, I'm clicking "publish post" despite my reservations.