9/11

Lying in my bed this morning, a thought I had struck me. Looking at my clock, which is near my bed and also displays the date, I saw that it was September 11th. Upon seeing the date, I thought, “Wow, it doesn’t feel like September 11th."

Other September 11ths, you see, had sort of felt like September 11ths. What I mean by that is, I had always been able to sort of feel the day, the gravity of it. I had always been able to place myself somehow into world events and reflect on what it had meant for it to be September 11th, another year later.

But not this morning. And that was the thought that had struck me. “Wow, September 11th just feels like any old date." But it’s not, which is why I thought I might share some of my remembrances from that day, 18 years ago. I hope you enjoy and appreciate the piece.

My very first encounter with the tragedy that was September 11th was the sound of my college roommate’s voice, waking me out of my sleep. Jake and I shared a small room on the second floor of a dormitory that was a part of SUNY Cortland, my college. I had been sleeping but was awoken when Jake, who had already turned on the TV and saw the news, said, “Dude, it’s World War III.” When I finally came to, I think I must have asked him what he meant and after I did, he replied, “The Twin Towers are down.”

I remember thinking to myself, “What?” But the funny thing is, right after Jake explained to me what had happened -- by then it was a little after 10:30 a.m. and both towers had already fallen -- I immediately comprehended it and understood it. There was no moment of, “No, this can’t be real.” Perhaps Jake’s original statement, “Dude, it’s World War III,” was more of a shock. That I needed a minute to understand. But reality set in incredibly quickly after I saw the footage on the news. Perhaps I comprehended everything so quickly because I still was able to recall the first time terrorists tried to destroy the Twin Towers, in 1993.

The next thing I remember from that day is a basketball court at my college. The administration had decided to cancel all classes, and many of us students didn’t know what to do. Being that we were in the center of New York State, about 215 miles away from New York City, we weren’t in any danger. We were in New York, but it was almost like we, the students, were a world apart. I remember the basketball court because that’s where Jake and I decided to go, to blow off steam, I guess. I remember that at the basketball court -- there were actually several of them, all adjacent to each other -- the sun was shining. Many people recall how on that awful day, the weather, ironically, was beautiful. About 25 kids were at the court, and even though we did play (or just shoot around, I’m not sure), we kept taking these big breaks to discuss the matter. I can’t remember the discussions, but I remember that court.

There are just two more things that I remember. I remember that later in the day, around sundown, I got a call from my mom. My mom wasn’t in New York when 9/11 happened; she was in Paris traveling with my aunt. However, when she finally did get me on the phone that evening, I remember feeling surprised after she told me she hadn’t at all been worried that I might have been in danger. I mean, I guess that makes sense, considering that I went to college, like I said, 215 miles away from Manhattan. But I remember having thought that maybe my mom had concocted a scenario where I went into Manhattan over the weekend or something. However, when I ran this idea by her, she said she thought that I was crazy, that such a thought had never crossed her mind. I remember my mom telling me that it had been difficult to get through to me on the phone because she kept getting that message when too many people are trying to use the lines at once: “All circuits are busy.”

The last thing I remember from that day is having talked with my friend Nina on the phone. Nina had been a good friend from high school and was living in Manhattan, on the Upper East Side, near the East River. To varying degrees, Nina and I had kept in touch after high school, but on that fateful day, I called her just to see that she was OK. I remember on the phone hearing a degree of fear in Nina’s voice -- which was strange for her, because she was often very cool and collected -- and her telling me, “Chad, there’s smoke everywhere.” She was about eight miles from Ground Zero, but of course there was still smoke by her, and that was the one thing that I remember her telling me, “There’s smoke everywhere."