Sunday, September 11, 2011

Remembering 10 Years Ago

10 years ago........

Where were you at? 

What were you doing? 

What were you thinking about? 

I was sitting in the library for my Social Studies class researching for a class paper. I remember the librarian quickly rushed to the tv and turned it on very quietly so that we could not hear. Then she went to my teacher and told her and as she did that my teacher gathered us together to see what was on tv. We only watched it for a few minutes, but I immediately thought of my brother. 

At that time, my brother and his wife were going to school and working in NYC, but I did not know how close they were to the World Trade Centers. My mother worked in the school and I asked the teacher if I could go see her to see if she had heard from my brother or his wife. As I was walking down the hall I could not grasp what was going on in NYC, but I just knew that it was a day that would be remembered forever. 

The phone lines were turned off and we could not reach my brother and his family for almost 2 days. The train stations and subways were shut down as well and my sister-in-law had to be picked up by her brother who is a NYC Police Officer and brought to her house on Long Island. My brother and his wife were having trouble getting in touch with each other as well. When they finally did reach us and each other we found out that they were safe and sound. It was a hard time for our family as well as the country. 
2 years after 9/11/01 happened my family and I took a vacation to NYC and we were able to go down to  where the World Trade Towers had once stood. This was very hard because there was still people grieving and placing flowers and missing poster signs everywhere. There were tons of people there looking at the names on the boards of their loved ones that had been lost. 
As you can see in the picture above, there was huge gates/bars that blocked you from being able to go anywhere close to the site. The first picture I have up is of 2 beams that as the building fell, they fell in the form of a cross. This was not remade to look like a cross. It was astonishing to see that even through that chaos God was still there watching over the families and workers. 
This building was next to the World Trade Towers and had not yet been repaired, but had a huge black sheet covering it from the damage. 
It was very hard to be down there and see the site, but at the same time it gave me a huge appreciation to the people who fought to save the lives there, my country and the people who continued to work at this area. 

These pictures above are my own and I plan one day to go back and see the Memorial site that they are created since I once was there. At the time that I went there was only a huge hole in the ground that you can see above in one of the pictures. 

Thank you to those men and women that fought and are still fighting for our country and our freedom. Without you, we would not have the freedom that we have today. 

Question: Where were you on this day 10 years ago? What were you thoughts as you heard about the World Trade Towers being hit? 

1 comment:

Rach said...

I actually have a picture very similar to yours of the two beams that make up the cross. I didn't realize that they had just happened to fall that way - I thought it must just be a tribute that someone had set up. I actually just put that picture in my post today. :)