It hits me every so often and I start to cry. I heard that Alan Jackson song, “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning,” and lost it. I read a snippet in the Reader’s Digest about how firefighters were stopping before Father Mike and asking for absolution before going into the building. The writer said it struck her that they were like soldiers going into battle, and a lot of them knew what they were getting into. Again, I lost it. On Flag Day we had a Civil War reenactment in out tiny little town and a bagpiper played Amazing Grace. I thought of how they played that during all the police funerals in NY, and again, I lost it.
Does it get better? If there are any posters out there that remember Pearl Harbor…does it get better? (Damn, I’m getting choked up just typing this.)
I’ve cried once, and that was when I found out my friend who normally works in the Pentagon wasn’t there that day.
I’m not an emotional person - cold, some have said. So, my answer would be no, I don’t. (But then, I think about my friend’s wedding coming up in January and I know I better take a wad of tissues to the wedding 'cause I’m already sniffling. )
But to answer your question…it has to get better. Because we can’t be a shocked, mourning nation forever. We’ll move on - we moved on from Oklahoma City. We’ll be changed and we won’t forget. Some people will always cry thinking about it, because of the strong emotions or the events that something unexpected brings out.
It’s the experience of grief. I have a friend who died years ago, but something unexpected can bring him to mind and I will think of him for days, remembering the good times and the bad times.
I don’t know that any of this answers your question at all. But it’s the answer I have.
The day of, I was shocked. I got into work maybe 15 minutes after the first plane flew into the WTC. Since I work in video, we have live feeds, and we saw the second plane fly in. It was absolutely surreal, and no one did any work that day.
I have video clips (on my hard drive at work) of the planes crashing into the WTC that I occasionnaly view, just to remind myself of the sheer horror.
I’ve also come across of clips of jumpers, which I find even more horrifying. I would have probably done the same, but the idea of it scares the crap out of me. I just pray that those who jumped had their brains go into shock, thereby sparing them them the feeling of plummeting to the ground.
I didn’t have net access on 11 September last year, so it was only the other day I got around to reading the first thread which was posted on the SDMB relating the events as they happened.
I think I got about half way down the first page before there were tears streaming down my face - and I’m not an American.
The one photo that’s the worst for me is a long shot of the towers after the first jet has crashed, and just at the edge of the frame the second one is approaching.
I still do. I was un employed on 9/11, and the first thing I did was check SDMB for some point of reference, to see what other thought. We suffered that day,and I hope we will never stop. What happend that day was horrible, and we should never lose our abhorence, our hatred toward the cowards who attacked us.
OC,TJMO,ICBW
Of course, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.
I’ve run the entire gamut of emotions. Shock, horror, sadness, denial, anger, grief, sympathy. There remains an underlying feeling of both sadness and anger.
Shock, horror, sadness, denial, anger, grief, sympathy…I too have felt all the above, I sat and watched on TV when the 2nd plane drove into the towers. All I could think at the time was about the terror all those helpless people must have been feeling. All the terror and helplessness of all those who lost love ones, all the serching for days and days and finding in the end their was no hope left. Yes, I think about Sept 11 alot…and my heart still breaks, the true horror of it all is that we now know we are subject to any and all terroist attacts. There have been so many rumors flying around about another one to be taking place on any and all holidays. The latest being this coming July 4th. So, the horror of it all is relived time and again, day after day. Will we ever be the same again? No! But our daily prayers given to thoses lost and for we who remain must go on to give the strength for our tomorrows.
Yes. I’m still surprised to recall that the WTC isn’t there anymore, and that the horror was real. On Memorial Day, my local newspaper ran a story of what happened to those who stayed, based on telephone calls, e-mails, and conversations. I was particularly haunted by a group of people who started down the one stairwell in the South tower which was open above the explosion, told others it was blocked by smoke and fire, and went up to the roof. Their story was told by people they’d met who tried going down later and made it. I’ve also bookmarked the SDMB thread as a reminder of how we felt as it unfolded.
For me it seems that I am processing this in small doses over a long period of time. I wanted to talk about it incessantly at the time, in order to try to get my mind around it. Now, I don’t think about it all the time, but every so often something will happen that reminds me. I’ll suddenly start thinking of how high 120 stories actually IS. Or, holy shit, both those towers are gone, now, aren’t they? Or, geez, three thousand people–that’s a fifth of this town! I’ll think of David Angell or Barbara Olson, people who were famous beforehand, or read an article about the firefighters in NYC dealing with the emotional aftermath. A Doper names her daughter after a missing police officer. When these things happen, I tap into a well of sadness and anger about Sept. 11 and start to feel the feelings that are too big to feel all at once.
I get angry about the “political fallout” that is occuring because of it now.
I get angry that it happened.
I get angry when someone around me says “I’m tired of all this 9/11 stuff”.
I get angry that is might happen again.
The last time I got sad about it was when the thread was linked to the SDMB thread from that morning. My reaction was… visceral.
If things don’t get better, politically, I will probably remain angry for a long time…
Yes. There isn’t a day that goes by that some reminder doesn’t show up, and it makes me so damn angry and sad. Every time I go into NYC, I see that huge gap in the skyline. I remember Sunday September 9th, when I went into and out of the City and didn’t even notice the WTC.
I will remember 9/11 100 years from now, when I’m 147.
When 9/11 happened my wife and I were in Moscow, Russia visiting her parents. We were at a dinner party when the kids came in and said that a plane crashed into the WTC. A little later, they told us about a second plane . . then the Pentagon. I was shocked, but I can honestly say that it didn’t hit me like it would have if I were in the U.S. at the time. I don’t speak Russian with anything resembling fluency, or even general understanding, so all of my information was via translation by my lovely wife, who I drove nuts with questions she couldn’t answer.
The Russian news service is very different from the US, there was no speculation about who did it, just a report on what happened. As you can imagine, I was pretty starved for information. Because of airport closings we ended up flying back several days late (our original flight was Sept. 12), and after I got back is when the whole thing hit me.
When we flew out, we went from Orlando to New York to Russia. I’m the only one in the family that’s ever been to New York. On the flight in I was with my kids at the windows of the plane point out some of the landmarks as we made our landing approach. There’s the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, there’s the World Trade Center. The kids were my wife’s from a first marriage, so they are Russian too. To see the amazement on thier face as they saw these landmarks was a cool time for me as a parent.
When we flew back, we flew Moscow to New York to Orlando. When the plane came into land at the airport I cried like a baby. My family gathered at the window again, and looked out across the city. From the window I could see the smoke curling up from the WTC site, and it hit me THEN, a couple of thousand feet over the city of New York that, yes it really, it wasn’t a dream.
So when I get choked up, it’s about that day, when I finally saw it for myself.
I was just thinking about this a few days ago, and about how I didn’t want to mention it to anyone. It seems to me that the subject is changed quickly whenever the terrorist attacks are brought up now. It’s been over 9 months, and we’ve continued to go on with our daily lives the same as we did before it happened. A few months ago I saw a low flying airplane (we were close to an airport) and asked a friend of mine if she ever gets creeped out when she sees an airplane now. She looked at me like I had 4 heads and said “Uh…NO.” Well, I do. And I wonder how many others do, but don’t say anything about it.
When I remember it, yes I get choked up. But it’s mostly from remembering that tight gripping horror I felt in my chest as I heard (and later saw) the reports from the WTC. When I see an airplane, the 2nd plane in my mind’s eye, flying full-speed into the tower. I live very near an air force base and every time I see a military jet my heart skips. No, it hasn’t changed the way I live my life. I still work, I still shop, I still travel. But it has changed the way I look at things that used to go unnoticed.
Earlier this month some relatives for FL visited me and Mrs. Z for a weekend.
They wanted to see the site.
I had only been in the are once befor. This was just as the clean up was ending. Basically there is only a big hole and it looks like a construction site. Some of the surrounding buildings are still damaged and the work to repair them has not started or is very slow.
So we went to the official viewing platform. In the area, well wait.
All around NYC in various places there are street vendors. They sell purses, watches, Oaklies, and lots of art and photos of NYC. The art and photos concentrate on the WTC and/or the beams of light.
Down by the site there were tons of street vendors selling a magazine of photos from 9/11. Of course the covers all had the impact or the burning towers or the falling towers. These guys pretty turned my stomach and I was tempted to pull a ‘Jesus’ on their money changings asses. But they didn’t see to be doing much business. After getting tickets we had to wait around a church that is right by the entrance to the platform. This church was once the tallest structure on the island. The church has a large iron fence surrounding it as the grave yard is quite old. The fence is coverd with ‘stuff’. Teddy bears, origami crane chains, flags, t-shirts, flowers and posters. Posters of well wishes from grade schools and communities and some posters of ‘the missing’.
There really isn’t much to see from the platform. As I said the clean up is done. But there is something to see. The platform itself.
It is simply made from inexpensive lumber. You go up a ramp to the viewing area and then back down another ramp. A wall seperates the two ramps. The walls are coverd with writing. Little notes from the viewers. Little notes from around the world. It is like the worlds High School yearbook. This is what gave me some solace.
Down in Battery Park we saw ‘The Sphere’. A large sculpture that was pulled from the site. The dents and gashes are terrible. They remind me how I feel.
I still get choked up, and I still think about it occasionally. I can’t listen to that Enya song, “Only Time”, because I viewed a memorial website that used that song in the background, and it makes me think of looking at all the photos of people who lost their lives that day.
I still get a little freaked out when I see a low-flying plane too. We live near a couple of airports, and there was one day when I saw a couple flying pretty low. I realised later that they must change their flight patterns when it’s really windy (as it was that day). Now when I see a low-flying plane I tell myself it’s probably because of the wind or weather or something, but that still doesn’t stop my heart from going straight to my throat.
