With these few extra minutes, and because I was in no way in a hurry to get to school, I walked into the living room and turned on the TV. What is now a part of my daily morning routine was most certainly not at that time in my life. I watched the news, but only in the evenings - I never had time in the mornings as I was all too familiar with my alarm clock's snooze button.
Nevertheless, the TV came on and displayed what I immediately recognized to be the World Trade Centre Twin Towers in New York City. I could see smoke barrelling out the side of one of the towers, so I called my dad to come quickly. We both assumed some terrible accident had just occurred, but we didn't know what exactly.
We continued to watch this live feed, and around two minutes later, we noticed another plane coming towards the towers. Again, dad and I had the same assumption - we assumed this plane was a water bomber getting ready to put out the fire caused by this horrible accident.
Dad and I had no clue at that very moment, that what we were witnessing, in real time, was in fact no accident at all. For the next few minutes, we stood there in shock trying to fully grasp what we had just witnessed. We saw that second plane fly at full speed directly into the second tower. The vulnerability I felt at that moment is something I haven't felt again since that morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
I guess it was the communicator inside of me that told me I had to spread the word of what my father and I had just witnessed. We didn't see the terror attacks being played back - we saw the second plane hit the WTC tower at the very moment it really happened. At the very moment hundreds of people in that plane died on impact. At the very moment the people on those floors of that glorious tower in NYC were being killed, and at the very moment that some people - some of the most brightest minds in the United States - started throwing themselves off the tower as they knew there was no hope left for them.
I went to school and started telling everyone in the halls what I had just seen. It was the expression on my math and gym teacher, Monsieur Dupasquier's face that surprised me. He looked at me and laughed. I didn't understand why he was laughing, until he told me I had to be joking. I assured him I was very serious (did the look of terror on my face not give it away?) and suggested that he go to the teachers' lounge and turn on the TV, as he would see that the WTC Twin Towers were on their way down to the ground in what would soon be known as the largest terror attack in American history.
Looking back, the events that happened that day - in NYC, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania - may have been what stemmed my passion for communications. I was glued to the TV for the next week, absolutely enthralled in the events that had occurred, and the number of lives that had been lost. At that point, the number of people who were killed wasn't even known, and to this day, there are still some bodies that have never been found, meaning that some families have never had the chance to say goodbye to their loved ones after all this time.
Nearly 3,000 people died on this day, ten years ago tomorrow. I, and millions among millions of people, will never forget these terrifying and tragic events and ultimately the war, the policies and the feelings of terror that have stemmed from them.
Tomorrow, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum opens at the site of what used to be the WTC Twin Towers. I look forward to the day that I make my way to this beautiful city so that I can pay my respects to the thousands of people who were killed unjustly, and to those who were killed trying to save their fellow men and women.
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| An artist's rendering of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum |
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