My daughter and I had been up for a few hours, I fed her breakfast, she blew kisses to her Daddy as he went to work and we were getting on with our daily routine. There was a play area in the basement for her, I had NBC in the background with Katie and Matt. While she played, I did laundry.
As I walked over the wooden gate between the laundry room and play area, the television was showing footage of billowing smoke coming from one of the World Trade Towers. There was talk that a plane had crashed into it. I thought that's one hell of a freak accident, I called my husband who was at work in Philadelphia, we pondered how this could "accidentally" happen. I informed him I would continue to watch, said "I love you", and we would check back later.
I stood transfixed in front of the TV, and minutes later I saw something flying around the tower in the distance, I held my breath. Within moments the second tower was hit, I watched it live on TV, but couldn't believe it happened. That's when I picked up my one year old daughter and held her close to me. My husband called and we both agreed it must be a terrorist attack. Then there were scattered reports of the Pentagon being hit. This was it, I thought, every major city has been targeted and the news reports would just keep coming. It was time to put my little one down for her morning nap so I did, because I needed to.
I called a girlfriend who worked in DC, she informed me she was safe and on her way home. Then, from the safety of my living room I watched the towers fall, the debris barreling down the streets of the city, the wounded, the people walking home over the bridges. The thick grey despair that fell over everything in the city. The wreckage of the plane near Pittsburgh.
I watched for days. The images I saw will haunt me forever. The way the photographs of the missing grew and grew along the walls at Ground Zero. All the while the rescue personnel continued searching. Interviews of people talking about the ones not yet found with hope in their hearts but anguish in their faces.
Knowing children just like mine had blown kisses to their Daddy's for the last time that morning.
