I did this drawing of Richard a few days after September 11th, 2001,
when I was still reeling from the events but had become clear-headed enough to
try and get my feelings on paper in some fashion. Fifteen years on, this is what I can recall of the actual day...
My husband Jamin and I both had that Tuesday
off, so we were sleeping in when my Mom called around 10 AM. Since we work nights quite a bit, we've got
this rule that you don't call us that early unless it's an emergency, so I
picked up the phone and wondered what was so darn important that she had to
call and wake us up. Mom asked if we
were watching TV, and I said no, we were sleeping. She insisted that we had to turn on the news,
so we got out of bed, half-asleep, and went into the living room to turn on the
big TV. That's when we saw the World
Trade Center on fire. We sat there
staring at this for about a minute when Jamin said, "Isn't there supposed
to be two of them?" As he said
that, the news replayed the footage of the planes flying into the towers, and
we realized that one of them had collapsed due to the impact. Not long after, the second tower fell --
unlike the South Tower, which we'd slept right through, we got to watch the
North Tower collapse on live TV.
We numbly watched TV for about a half-hour or so, still in
our pajamas but too transfixed by what was going on to think about getting
dressed, when a horrifying thought grabbed me: my Dad goes to New York on
business trips a few times a year. I ran
to the phone and called his place in Ohio, and was glad to find that both he
and his wife were home. Then Dad told me
that my stepbrother Matt was in New York -- I was right about the business
trip, but had thought of the wrong family member. Matt had already called home and was safe,
but he'd been roughly 15 blocks away when the planes started coming in. I've never really talked with him about the
experience, as I don't find it an easy subject to broach, but I do thank God
that he made it out of the city unharmed.
After a few hours, Jamin managed to pry himself away from
the TV, but I kept on watching. There
was so much to take in -- all the planes, all the places, all the people --
that it didn't feel right to turn away.
I think I quit after 5 hours or so, and finally got into the shower and
cleaned up. I don't remember anything
else we did that day, but I think we turned the TV off for a little while, just
to give our minds a break.
