10 years
Ten years ago I was working in Mallorca and had just opened the kid's club. My co-worker Joey stopped in to tell me that a guest had mentioned that a plane had crashed into a building in New York City and she was telling me because she knew my boyfriend worked there. She hadn't seen the news herself and we had no idea the enormity of the situation. I asked her if she would mind taking over while I went to check out the news in the hotel bar. On my way over I was thinking a small aircraft had probably lost control and flew into an apartment building or something and how terrible that would be for the people involved. Nothing could prepare me for what I saw when I opened the door of the bar and stepped inside.
My stomach lurched as I saw that almost every guest in the hotel had crammed into the small bar. Everyone was standing still and everyone was silent. I glanced to the big TV screen, the second plane had just gone into the other tower and we watched as they replayed the scene over and over. My first thought was Mike, my boyfriend who I wanted to be with forever. A couple of weeks previous his office had relocated downtown. How downtown I didn't know. Was he there? Was he close? What if he had a meeting there? I felt sick as I racked my brain to remember the location of his new office. I ran like a crazy person to the public telephone outside of the hotel, throwing in all the coins I had and dialing his office over and over until I wanted to throw up. When I realised there was no use, I started frantically dialling his parents house over and over. Eventually, that evening I got hold of Mike's Dad who told me they had heard from him and he was on his way to his co-workers house in Westchester, his only option for leaving the city where he could see the smoke rising and that the towers were gone. He talked animatedly of what had happened but I wasn't listening, he was fine, he was okay.
When I think about all those innocent people who lost their lives, and the wives and husbands and mothers and fathers and children, especially the children, who lost a family member it fills me with tremendous sadness. God bless all the amazing people who risked their own lives to help others that day. God bless the souls of the people who never lived to see another day.
A couple of months passed before I went to visit Mike. The day I went back to the city I wasn't prepared to still see the pictures of people who were still missing all over the walls of Penn Station with notes from their family members who really believed, who had to believe, that there was a chance, however small, that their loved one might turn up. Looking to my right as I stepped out of the station I saw for myself that the once huge and imposing towers that could be seen for miles were gone and how it had changed the city's landscape forever. I had spent so much time in this city, especially in my year as an au pair in 98/99. I have my World Trade Center ticket stub preserved in an album next to a picture of the towers I took in 99 by lying on the floor and looking up and backward with my lens, the only way you could photograph the towers so close.
This morning I remembered and cried as I read the newspaper, keeping it well away from the kids, knowing the questions that would come from my sensitive boy if he saw the pictures of people crying at the memorial. One day they will know what happened, its important for them to know what happened and to remember and honor those people who became heroes overnight. But this is not for innocent children's eyes, not yet, not for a long time. Like all mothers, I want to protect them from the bad things in the world as long as possible. Last night as I read 'The Velveteen Rabbit' to Caden and Violet in their room before bedtime, Caden's lip came out as he tried to stop himself from crying at the thought of the velveteen rabbit being left in a bag outside in the dark alone, I thanked God that this is the extent of his worries.
My stomach lurched as I saw that almost every guest in the hotel had crammed into the small bar. Everyone was standing still and everyone was silent. I glanced to the big TV screen, the second plane had just gone into the other tower and we watched as they replayed the scene over and over. My first thought was Mike, my boyfriend who I wanted to be with forever. A couple of weeks previous his office had relocated downtown. How downtown I didn't know. Was he there? Was he close? What if he had a meeting there? I felt sick as I racked my brain to remember the location of his new office. I ran like a crazy person to the public telephone outside of the hotel, throwing in all the coins I had and dialing his office over and over until I wanted to throw up. When I realised there was no use, I started frantically dialling his parents house over and over. Eventually, that evening I got hold of Mike's Dad who told me they had heard from him and he was on his way to his co-workers house in Westchester, his only option for leaving the city where he could see the smoke rising and that the towers were gone. He talked animatedly of what had happened but I wasn't listening, he was fine, he was okay.
When I think about all those innocent people who lost their lives, and the wives and husbands and mothers and fathers and children, especially the children, who lost a family member it fills me with tremendous sadness. God bless all the amazing people who risked their own lives to help others that day. God bless the souls of the people who never lived to see another day.
A couple of months passed before I went to visit Mike. The day I went back to the city I wasn't prepared to still see the pictures of people who were still missing all over the walls of Penn Station with notes from their family members who really believed, who had to believe, that there was a chance, however small, that their loved one might turn up. Looking to my right as I stepped out of the station I saw for myself that the once huge and imposing towers that could be seen for miles were gone and how it had changed the city's landscape forever. I had spent so much time in this city, especially in my year as an au pair in 98/99. I have my World Trade Center ticket stub preserved in an album next to a picture of the towers I took in 99 by lying on the floor and looking up and backward with my lens, the only way you could photograph the towers so close.
This morning I remembered and cried as I read the newspaper, keeping it well away from the kids, knowing the questions that would come from my sensitive boy if he saw the pictures of people crying at the memorial. One day they will know what happened, its important for them to know what happened and to remember and honor those people who became heroes overnight. But this is not for innocent children's eyes, not yet, not for a long time. Like all mothers, I want to protect them from the bad things in the world as long as possible. Last night as I read 'The Velveteen Rabbit' to Caden and Violet in their room before bedtime, Caden's lip came out as he tried to stop himself from crying at the thought of the velveteen rabbit being left in a bag outside in the dark alone, I thanked God that this is the extent of his worries.
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