Patriot Day, I Remember

When I heard the news, I was driving to the main library in St. Petersburg, Florida where I had been spending the past several weeks working on the first draft of a novel. I found it easier to write tucked away in the library's quiet solitude. My home office was no longer a place I could retreat to for uninterrupted writing time because it now hummed with the sound of my toddler daughter scampering about the house with three pug dogs in tow.

The dogs were always on her trail lest she drop a Cherrio or make the mistake of resting a cookie or other edible delight within striking distance. Their "bad dog" habit of placing their front paws on the coffee table and other furnishings allowed them to snatch food left on the perimeter. The two-legged interloper who joined the pack twenty months earlier was a walking Pez dispenser of treats. No, this was not a writer's retreat, so this writer occasionally retreated to the public library.

As I drove, I turned on the radio and only about mile from house on the three-mile drive I heard the news. A plane had struck one of the World Trade Center towers. The news report was vague at this point. I imagined it was something like the B-52 Bomber that crashed into the Empire State building in 1945. Back then, it was a foggy day and the plane was flying too low. Fourteen people died that day. Despite this tragedy, over half a century later, the Empire State building continued to grace the New York City skyline.

What else could explain a plane hitting one of the towers at the World Trade Center? I pondered. It had to be a small aircraft piloted by someone who suddenly had a medical issue causing them to lose control of the plane, I thought. Or fog, yes fog and an inexperienced pilot. What else could explain a pilot flying into one of these mammoth structures? I tried to explain the unexplainable to myself. I continued driving to the library curious about the vague report on the radio. I'd catch it on the news later. I never imagined the horror unfolding. Who could?

Another report came through radio. A second plane hit the other World Trade Center. Something was terribly wrong. How could this be? Was there some malfunction in the air traffic control equipment at the city airports? I turned my car around and headed home. This didn't make sense, these reports of planes hitting buildings in Manhattan. I'd been there many times. You couldn't miss these behemoths crowning the lower tip of Manhattan. None of this made sense.

As I entered the house, my pack of pugs tore into the living room with their always rambunctious greeting, acting as if I'd been gone for 10 days instead of ten minutes. My daughter wasn’t be far behind. I picked up the remote and turned on the television. As the images of the World Trade Centers in flames filled the screen, I began sobbing. There were no words for what I was seeing, just emotion.

This past July, I took my now thirteen-year-old daughter to New York City for vacation. We visited the 9/11 Memorial where twin reflecting pools rest in the footprints of the towers. Bronze panels outline the entire length of the memorial, inscribed with the names of those who died. The chaos of that day in September is gone, replaced by the reverence of thousands of visitors who pay their respects daily. I scanned the names carved into the bronze, the names of those who were here that day when I was driving to the main library in St. Petersburg, Florida, the day our lives, our country and our world were forever changed. Once again, there were no words for what I was seeing.

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To find out more about me or the novel I was writing at the time, click here.