It was a typical suburban mother morning. I had gotten my son on his early morning bus and driven my daughter’s carpool to school. I was bustling about the house doing the usual things when the phone rang. “Something big just happened,” my husband said. “A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.”
I remember thinking it was odd that he would call. I didn’t quite understand what he was saying. “Ok, thanks for telling me,” I said.
I immediately went to our computer and tried to get on CNN. The circuits were jammed and I kept watching the little hourglass swirling around aimlessly. Randomly, just 10 days before I had declared our house a “no television zone” for the month of September. The reasons why I did this are unclear to me now, but in that moment I felt it would be a betrayal to turn on the tv.
I kept watching the hourglass spin as I tried other news sites to no avail. Realizing that my husband must be right – this was a big deal, I ran upstairs and flipped on Good Morning America.
About a minute later the second plane hit.
Not long after that the tower fell.
I am not sure I even comprehended what that meant at the time – I just knew it was horrible and scary and sad. I wanted to drive to my children’s schools and bring them home – a place that I considered safe.
I sat in front of the news channel until noon – when I had to go to my daughter’s school to work “desk duty”. This was supposed to add security to the school – monitoring outsiders and visitors from wandering about. Considering the terrorist acts of the morning, this job seemed all the more ironic. What security was I, a suburban mother, able to offer these children?
No comments:
Post a Comment