Sunday, September 11, 2005
We will never forget!!
By the time you read this it will be Sept. 12th - sorry, I was too busy remembering the heroes who died on Sept. 11, 2001 to actually sit here and type till the day was past.
Living out on Long Island, I am less than 60 miles from NYC and ‘Ground Zero’ and I can remember every detail about that day. I can remember the first radio broadcasts about the first plane hitting the Trade Center (we were in the doc’s waiting room) and watching emergency vehicles race down the L.I.E. (Long Island Expressway) towards the city as we made our way towards home.
Driving into our driveway my thoughts were about my neighbor who works in the city, not far from the Trade Center, and wondering if he was ok. (He was fine actually and had to walk out of the city with his brother - who only the day before had been repairing elevators in WTC 1). It was then that I asked hubby if we should go to the schools to get the kids; we decided against that thinking that the schools would try to keep the day ‘normal’ for the kids and then send them home. (Their day was far from ‘normal’ as all classroom TVs were tuned to the horror in the city and they watched as certain classmates were called from class by relatives since mom and/or dad worked in the towers or were firemen or other rescue personnel.)
Yes, we lost many innocent people that day in a horror that those of us, who weren’t there first hand, could only try to feel by watching the images on TV. All day long we watched the TV and thought back to the day less than 3 weeks before when we rode the subway under the Trade Center and hubby asking our guests (my niece & her friend) if they wanted to go up to the observation deck before heading out to the Statue of Liberty. “No”, we all chorused, “we’ll do that the next trip.“ ; not knowing that we would never get the chance again.
Later on when the lists of the known dead and missing began to be published in the paper hubby would scan the names, as he knew people who worked in one tower or the other. He did find out about one of his friends that perished that day; the husband of his former boss, one who he proudly called friend. We went to the memorial service for Ronald Hoerner; it was very, very moving and sad.
Now it has been four years and people here haven’t forgotten nor will many of us forget. We won’t forget where we were that day, what we were doing when it happened nor will we ever forget the people we lost that day or the brave ones that helped to save so many while endangering or even ending their own lives. They give true meaning to the word Hero!
