9/11 Memories: My Story

In memory of those lost

In honor of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 today, I'm going to forgo my usual knitting & spinning topics of discussion in favor of writing about my memories and experiences of the event.

Understand that I think this is terribly cliché, cause it seems like everyone else in the world has spent the past week writing and talking about their own experiences from 2001, and I hate to admit that I'm following the crowd on anything.  But I realize that I've already forgotten a lot of the details of that day, and it's only going to get worse as time goes on.  My hope is that, by finally writing down my personal 9/11 memories (or, at least, what I can still remember of it), I will be able to arrest the memory decay that naturally occurs with passing time.

In September 2001, I was an undergraduate student at Syracuse University in central New York State.  My now-husband and I had started dating in August that year, and he was spending the semester in the Catskills doing a co-op (like an internship program, but going to school in the summer and working full time during a semester).  We were a few weeks into the fall semester when the world changed forever.

On the morning of September 11th, I didn't have class until around 10 am, so sometime after 9 am I was getting ready for the day ahead.  I sat down with my oatmeal (peaches and cream flavor, I'm pretty sure) and wanted to watch a little bit of TV before I left for class, so I turned on the television and saw smoke pouring out of the Twin Towers.  Shock and disbelief were definitely the first things I felt--it really took a minute or two to register that this was even real.

I'm not sure what I expected class to be like that morning, but when I got there the professor had already made the decision to project TV news coverage on the screen and just let us watch, instead of trying to teach us something when we all would have been too distracted to learn anyway.  One of the girls in my class had a brother who worked at the World Trade Center, and when we saw the towers fall live on TV, she left the room in tears (turns out her brother was fine, but she didn't know that until later).  According to the university, about 10% of students were from the city, so there was obviously a lot of concern around campus for families and friends.

I remember trying to call my dad after class, and I was having issues getting through because the cell networks were too busy (presumably because everyone else in the state was trying to call people as well).  I finally got through and talked to Dad for awhile.  Even though none of my immediate family members were anywhere close to New York City, it still made me feel better to touch base and know that everyone was still okay.

My husband (then boyfriend) was working all day on a construction site, I think in Poughkeepskie, which is only an hour or two outside the city.  They were listening to the news on the radio all day, since they didn't have TV at the job site, and so he had a very different experience of it, not seeing the pictures until the end of the day.  I didn't talk to him until sometime in the evening that day, since he didn't have a cell phone back then.  It's obviously impossible to say how our relationship would have ended up without 9/11, but I really think it brought us closer and made us prioritize spending time together a bit more.  Since we're still happily together 10 years later, we must've done something right, with or without 9/11.

I've forgotten a lot of how I felt and what I did on that day, but in the weeks and months after I distinctly remember a sense of togetherness and patriotism all around (because nothing unites like a common enemy, right?).  People were nicer, more understanding, and less bothered by petty things.  This newfound unity didn't completely last in the long term, but I see hints of it this weekend, when we're all reminded of what happened 10 years ago.

On September 20th, 2001, the city of Syracuse held some kind of 9/11 remembrance event in Clinton Square.  The photo above is one I took at the event, where Syracuse firemen were paying tribute to their fallen comrades in New York City.  This picture was so poignant and personal to me, despite the fact that I don't personally know the people in the photo, that I actually had it hanging on my wall for several years.

And now, 10 years later, the 9/11-themed commercials on TV are making me want to cry, reminding me of the tragedy and loss, as well as  the heroism and sacrifice of that day.  The world is different today than it was on September 10th, 2001, to be sure.  But hope endures, and even though some of the personal details are fading, we will never forget what happened on 9/11 or what it means for America.

My flag pin, still with me after 10 years