9/11/01

Well, it's that date. That one date that conjures up feelings of fear, anger, sorrow, and solidarity all at once. Last night, my roommate and I watched a special on CBS about the firefighters who lost their lives in the World Trade Center. It has been about a year since I really sat down and watched the whole thing happen again on television. It reminded me of that day, how confusing and scary it was, and how surreal it was. Still to this day, I don't think I really understand the totality of what happened. I was in Florida when it happened, getting ready for my Biology lab. I hadn't been to New York in years, and at that point in my life, I had never been to DC. I had seen the towers before, but I was very young. I still can't really remember how tall they were; how grand they really were. In 2003, I visited Ground Zero. I remember looking up at all the other skyscrapers and thinking to myself, "These buildings are so tall, but they're nothing compared to what those towers were." I stared into the void that is now where the towers used to be, but I still couldn't wrap my mind around what had really happened there. I wonder if I'll ever truly understand.

There is one image that I've seen on television over and over again that makes it real to me. I watched as the second plane crashed into the tower; I watched both collapse in real time. I saw the people running down the street, crying and screaming, and since then, I've seen the footage of the staircases - people in business suits going down the stairs; men in fireproof jackets going up the stairs. But still, there is just one image that makes my heart sink as low as it will get and gets me all choked up every time I see it or talk about. It's a young woman, with dark curly hair if I remember correctly, standing on a corner in Manhattan, holding a picture of another young woman, her eyes wide with desperation, holding the picture to the camera and pleading to anyone who will listen "Please, I need to find her. This is my best friend. Please."

I'm even getting a little emotional right now writing about it…

This is the image that makes it the most real to me. The planes, the towers collapsing, the people running through the streets – it seems like a movie. The firefighters climbing up the stairs – I don't know what it would be like to be them. Did they know they were climbing to their deaths? Were they scared? I have no idea.

But I know how that woman felt. My heart breaks with her every time I see her. I know about having a best friend, a friend that you just couldn't live without. I don't know what it would be like to be her at that very moment, but I know how I would feel if I were her. I know that getting there and finding her would be the only thing that I would be able to do with my life. I know that I would stand on the street corner with her picture, day in and day out, pleading, hoping, fearing, crying, searching. Nothing else in my life would matter.

I wonder if she ever found her. I hope so.