Posted by seesthru, TC Advisor on 9/10/2023, 11:54 pm
I will never forget that horrific day. I didn't find out until about 4 pm what had happened that morning. I was cleaning the living room, getting ready to let birds out to play for the evening. I turned the television on, without sound because I was vacuuming. They were replaying the events. I saw the buildings, but I didn't know what I was looking at. I thought it was a movie, or maybe a story about the Oklahoma City bombing.
After I finished vacuuming, I turned the sound up. It took a few minutes to piece together what had gone on.
I know no one will believe this, but I'm going to tell it anyway. I had laid down about 8 am my time, central time, because a few minutes earlier, I had such an overwhelming sadness and sense of despair. I felt as if the world had ended, or my heart had broken. I wrote down my feelings, and laid down and breathed deeply until I fell asleep.
At the time I felt those feelings, I attributed it to fatigue, not enough sleep, maybe "just a mood swing". I'd thought about calling my therapist at the time, but I really couldn't have explained why I felt that way.
I didn't make any assumptions or even think about that morning when I saw on television what had happened. Days later though, I wondered if maybe the worldwide horror was so great, so overwhelming, that not even knowing what had happened, maybe I felt it, because the world felt it.
Maybe it was coincidence. I don't know. It was lost in the horror of the things I saw on television, what we would all learn in the days and weeks to come.
Even today, 22 years later, I learn new things about that day. I learn of heroic acts done by everyday people, by office workers helping each other down the stairs to get out of the tower, about people sheltering strangers who couldn't get off Manhattan island that evening, about firemen and policemen and others running up the tower stairs to rescue anyone they could.
I learned about hospitals ready for hundreds of patients that never came. I am learning about first responders who today are still sick and still dying from the toxic fumes they inhaled, the toxins they were exposed to while searching for survivors, and to bring the deceased home to loved ones.
What I hope we can recover what we so desperately NEED right now, is how we all were on September 12, 2001 and the following weeks. We were kinder to each other, more patient, more compassionate.
So today, for the widows, orphans, the parents who lost children, for all who lost friends and loved ones, let us try and recapture the kindness, to honor the memory of all who perished.
I believe every word you said. For some unknown their are times people get a feeling that overwhelms them but don’t now why. Think what you said is one of those times . I think everyone can remember when they found out what had happened. I had just gone next door from work to get coffee. They had the tv on and when saw what they were looking out it was just beyond belief…as the day went on the horror just seemed to get worse..such a sad sad day in our history
Someone at work heard that something was going down and ran home to get her portable TV. It was horrible. We couldn't take in what was happening in NY and in the middle of that a coworker went into her office to answer her phone and she started wailing and keening at the top of her lungs. My boss had passed away in the middle of everything. He had been ill with colon cancer. We all started crying and screaming. Then we heard about the plane that went down and the attack on the Pentagon. There are no words to capture the horrors of that day. I was also on another forum then and one of the admins worked in Manhattan and lived on Long Island. Somehow she was able to get out of the city early enough to get home. From exposure coming into work the following weeks she developed lung issues which I suspect many many city workers also did.
Seesthru I believe that what you experienced was very real. I read a story where one person had a dream before it happened of a black cloud pouring upward from the Pentagon as if many, many souls were departing. I also read people's stories of how they were delayed that day in one form or another and hence remained unharmed. Some had otherworldly experiences.
So many got lung issues after being exposed to the dust and air there. So many chemicals, asbestos everything bad.
I always thought of Jung's collective unconscious theory, when I remember how I felt as I was laying down and not knowing it was happening. Maybe we are all tuned to the same frequency and feel it when the world cries, even when we don't know ..
Yes, he passed the morning of September 11, 2001. We still miss his zany personality and wit. A coworker's birthday is September 11. It will alway be overshadowed by 9/11.
Cathy
Re: The Torch of Freedom!
Posted by seesthru, TC Advisor on 9/13/2023, 12:19 pm, in reply to "The Torch of Freedom!"
It was so horrific. I guess that's why we all remember. I can picture the exact moment I turned the TV on, holding the vacuum cleaner in my right hand, turning the TV on with my left... turning away from it, then turning around to vacuum in front of it... and seeing the replay of the buildings on fire, and collapsing.
I believe confusion was the first thing people experienced. Not understanding what exactly was happening. Then shock, horror, and profound grief.