Six years ago nearly nearly to the hour I was sick and called off work. At about 8:30 AM I made a bed on the couch so I could watch TV and rest all day. When I turned the TV on it was on our NBC channel and the Today show was on. I hate watching network news programs because they hype stories and twist facts so bad in order to grab an audience, but I lay there and watched, too lazy to turn the channel.
After a few minutes, they showed a shot of the WTC where flames and smoke were pouring out of it. As Katy Kuric was talking about the possibility of an air traffic control problem, I saw the second plane hit. I must have stopped breathing for a minute as I sat up and looked at the mayhem. I think I remember every minute of that day from that point on - making phone calls, messaging people, and eyes glued to the TV for most of the next few days. As flights were canceled I realized I had friends ad family stranded all over the country and wondered how they were coping. I talked to my daughters as soon as I could. I remembered events as a kid giving me nightmares about an atomic holocaust and always thought my kids would grow in in a friendlier world.
Every day the next few weeks there were reminders that none of us would ever be the same. Eventually, we would carry out our day-to-day routine once again, but it would be a different world for Americans, and much of the planet. What still strikes me today is the slow healing process, certainly more so than any other event in my life time. I didn't realize until weeks later what a zombie I had become. My company sent a truck load of supplies to ground zero in NYC and I managed to gather a few thousand pair of nitrile gloves from my lab to send. We all helped with everything we could, yet felt so helpless.
A few weeks later, college football resumed play and I was sitting with close to 70,000 other people at Mountaineer Field in Morgantown. There was a pregame tribute much like thousands of others around the country. At one point the announcer said, "...a moment of silence for former WVU quarterback Chris Gray who was killed in his office at the WTC..." I can't say I knew Chris, but I met him and spoke with him a couple times outside the locker room, as he played two years with my cousin. I can still hear that silence - just a light breeze, flags flapping in the wind, and me crying. I'm sure thousands seated adjacent cried, but all I could hear was my heart beating even in my face, deep, broken breaths, and my hands rubbing my face. I think that was the point that the zombie left and the more human me came back to my body.
Chris was a great kid and I was so sad to hear that he was killed, but I think now I was crying for everyone, and for all we had lost.
http://www.wvu.edu/we_remember/memory_chrisgray.htm
