Remembering

It’s hard to believe it’s already been 7 years. Seven. It just doesn’t seem possible, especially when I remember just about every detail of that day. In fact, that today felt pretty much identical to this one. It was the same temperature, the same bright blue sky dotted by fluffy clouds, there was the same chill in the air. I hate feeling like today could be just another day, 7 years later. It doesn’t seem right that that day was just another day. It doesn’t seem possible that a catastrophe occured that day, and it just felt like another Tuesday in another week of another month of another year. There should have been something more. I just don’t know what.

I remember so many little things about that day. I had just started working at Progressive and had a long walk through the building to my department. As I started my trek, my co-worker Venus ran by me and asked if I’d heard the news. Of course, I hadn’t – I always listened to music in the car at that time. At that time, one plane had hit and it was assumed to be a terrible accident. I sped up to keep with her and by the time we got to our seats upstairs, the second plane had also hit. Our manager, Eric, had turned all of our queue screens to the news and the 50 or so of us stood at our cubicles and stared. Jamie wiped tears away. Lindsay was talking, but I don’t really remember a word she said. The phones were silent except for people calling us to ask if we’d seen what was going on. The news only got worse as the other two planes crashed and I remember feeling particular panic over Flight 93 because my uncle works in Shanksville.

We got maybe 5 calls that day. Even though nearly every business in Cleveland shut down out of fear, Progressive stayed open but many people were sent home, simply because the normal world didn’t operate that day. That day, we didn’t have to be employees or customer service representatives. We all were allowed to just be people who grieved and cried as the news continually got worse and the images became more engraved in our minds. I will never forget how horrible it felt to be stuck at work that day because work was empty. Nothing there mattered. It felt like there should have been something we could do to help. Some way to make it go away or convince ourselves it was a dream. There was nothing we could do – nothing anyone could do really – and maybe that’s the worst part. That huge, enveloping feeling of helplessness. It seemed like the world should have just shut down and stopped turning, but somehow, no matter how unfair time doesn’t stop for the heartbroken.

I remember going home that evening to an empty house. My sister was just graduating from Basic Training and my parents were driving through DC on their way to see her. J (John) felt badly that I was going home to no one so he decided to come over and keep me company because that day was a day that no one should have ever been alone.

There is one man that was on TV that will always haunt me on this day. His daughter was missing. He had a picture of her on a piece of posterboard and plead with the camera to help him find her. I don’t know why but I will never forget her name. It was Melissa Vincent. It’s strange to find one thing to latch onto like that, but she is the one face that I will truly never forget.

I still don’t know what more I expect there to be to associate with this day, I don’t know that I will ever like the thought that September 11, 2001 was just another day. Maybe that’s just it. What I am, maybe we are, supposed to take away is that every day is just another today that we are fortunate enough to live through. That today, there is another tomorrow waiting for us, just like there was that day. Except that day, the tomorrows ended for people who had no idea that their time was about to run out. That could have been any city on any day; it could have been any one us living our last todays without any suspicions that wasn’t going to be a tomorrow. Maybe we should live every day not expecting to be blessed with another – because any seemingly inconsequential day could be the last we see.