Three Years Later, Memories of 9/11

It was a perfect crisp, cool fall morning. The sky was cloudless and as blue as only an autumn sky can be. I think I will always remember that -- the contrast between how lovely the world was, and how horrible (and how heroic) people can be...

I was spending my morning washing dishes and doing other housework, not really thinking about anything, other than taking the dog for a long walk as soon as I got done with my chores. At that time we lived very close to a large airport -- Willow Run, which carries a lot of the freight for the Detroit area. I noticed that it was even noisier than usual, and seemed to be extremely busy that morning.

We had put a bid on a house the day before...a nice house in a nearby small town, out in the country, with a bit of land...

My husband called, frantic. He told me to call the realtor right away, to find out what was happening to the financial markets and the interest rates. I asked him why and he told me what had happened...

I watched television for awhile, numb. Then, since I work in a federal government hospital, I called work to see if I needed to come in early, or if there were going to be any strange security clearances I would need to pass to come into work that afternoon...I was told to just report in at my normal time. When I got there, the internet server had crashed, and everyone asked me what was going on. One of my coworkers was married to a police officer, and she broke down and sobbed when I told her of all of the rescue workers who were feared lost in New York.

My older son had to go into counselling for awhile after it happened. Since I work for the govenment, he was literally worried sick that someone would try to blow up the hospital where I work, and that something bad would happen to me.

The weirdest thing was how quiet the first few days were. Living so close to a big airport, the quiet was eerie. It was hard to sleep without all of the usual noise, and without the windows rattling as jets would come in and out for landings. And fighter jets from the National Guard flew over our house several times a day, making a circuit that covered Detroit Metro, Willow Run, and the commercial airports in Lansing and Grand Rapids...

Only one jet took off from WillowRun that week, after that busy morning when they all scrambled to get "home". It was carrying blood and burn supplies to Washington for the Pentagon survivors, being sent from the big burn center in Ann Arbor...