This came up in the Brag on Your Kids thread - I thought it deserved it's own space...

On 9/11, my daughter was in school. I took my (baby) son to the blood bank and waited on line to donate...

My son's father's brother was FDNY, we did not know he was okay until the next day.

My grandfather passed very suddenly earlier that morning, so we were already in a state of shock.  The first plane hit about 10 minutes later - whatever grief we were feeling took a back seat.  I remember instructing everyone in the family that they should fill their cars up with gas.  I don't know where this drill sergeant person came from, I usually let everyone take the lead.  

I live NYC and was home from work, sick, but on-line. Didn't have a tv then-- started getting all these emails asking if I was okay. Didn't know what was up. Turned on the radio-- I think before the second plane hit. Very intense time, very intense--
I'll never forget it. Will never forget the smell in the subway. I mean, the smell as we travelled thru the tunnel, past stations which were closed because of what happened and the train going really slow. Sick and eerie--
It changed me. Like I think it did everyone else. Or so I thought--

Elsa I'm so glad he made it okay!  Not without loss, I'm sure.

I was at home in Chicago getting ready to put in my VHS tape (flashback) of the previous weekend's Sex In The City episode.   Then both my parents called me at once.  I remember we all tried to call each other, and there was actually no dial tone - as in full capacity, due to everyone calling each other at once.  My ex was due to fly home from Houston that day but stayed stuck there for a week due to the flight grounding.   I spent the day watching tv and crying with my beloved (departed) cat on my lap. I had been in NYC five days earlier.  I remember it was a gorgeous, clear Indian summer day in Chicago and when I went out later that day I was so confused by how perfect the world still looked and felt shocked that any life could be going on as usual.

I was living  in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, teaching English at a school for Saudi girls - many whom were Al Saud princesses.  I had returned home from work (afternoon there with time difference) and turned on the news.  I thought I was watching a movie clip for a moment and then realized I was not.  Started worrying  about my brother who was living in NYC and other friends there.  Decided to do something practical to ground myself and ease the anxiety - so I headed to the grocery store.  I had a startling experience I will never forget en route.  I stopped at a cash machine - there the booths were separated for men and women only.  I went inside the woman's booth and started my transaction. I was aware of another woman coming in.  Although I was wearing the abaya and a scarf, my face was not covered and with my blonde hair peaking out the front, it was not hard to detect I was foreign.  Suddenly the woman reached out to me, she grabbed my arm and I about jumped out of my skin.  Then in a flash she lifted her face scarf so I could see her face.  With tears in her eyes, she asked,"are you American?" and I said "yes."  Then she said, "I'm so sorry, I'm so very sorry"....   It was an incredibly poignant moment of woman reaching woman....and I'll never forget it. 

I remember it was a sunny day, my phone rang verry early in the am.  My mom told me to turn on the tv.  I was in shock. Went to work to my daughter to the pre school in the same mall as my shop. I only had a few clients.  I wanted to be home with my daughter so that is what we did. So scary and overwhelming, like reality as I knew it tilted on its axis.  Life is sooo fragile and precious. xx

I was a senior in High school, I just woke up at my friends house and was about to get ready for school and I guess my friends mother had told her what had happened and then she told me, my reply was short and cold. EH, we needed some population control. Mind you I'm an angry punk at 16. My feelings for this tragedy is completely sympathetic now, it wasn't until I was out of my teens that I had  any sympathy.

I was working as a bicycle messenger and the entire financial district went nuts. We all work on commission and so there was this weird disconnect of people knowing there was no work/money and a lot of the buildings were shut completely--trying to so deliveries and being refused entry. A lot of messengers went to the local bar and drank and watched the TV reports and people were very confused. It was my 2nd day at my company and I remember wondering if I would still have work the next day and then feeling very ashamed by thinking that...I also had a friend visiting from England (a house guest). She was an ambulance driver in London by training andwe talked a lot about it there was war she'd feel comfortable driving ambulance here or joining the service. It was very close to the time she was due to fly home and no flights were leaving the country so we really didn't know how to react.

I used to go to sleep with the television on sometimes and I have all kinds of weird/surreal dreams/dreamlike states that when I opened my eyes and looked at the tv it took a few minutes for it to actually register what was going on.  I think it was like 7am here on the West Coast when I woke up, before the first tower collapsed.

I was supposed to be in NYC that week.  Was going to fly in for the CMJ Music festival and I honestly don't even know what happened with the plans for that but it sure left an impression on me.

I went to school that morning but ended up leaving after my first class.  It was a music theory class and the Professor was in a state of shock after learning that one of her friend's sons had committed suicide because of the shock/fear over what had happened and what might be coming ahead for our country. 

As far as LA is from NYC, everyone was in a state of shock here.  I never thought I would see anything like this ever happen in my country.

It was a very difficult time in my life.  I had just relinquished custody of my older children to their father because he was willing to (and could afford to) go to court to try and get them away from me.  I was pregnant with my youngest child and had given up just about everything and moved in with a friend of mine. 

I got up that morning and went to pick up another friend and take her to the airport.  I turned on the radio and they were talking about some sort of plane crash.  I thought it was a morning radio stunt until I arrived at my friends house and heard her say "I'm not going anywhere today!"

We spent the morning at her house watching the second tower fall and the world change.  The next day I went to work as a receptionist for a non-profit company in downtown Atlanta.  Remember the anthrax scare?  There was a planned parenthood office in our building and I was the one who got the mail every day.  

I remember a moment a few weeks later where a fire truck screamed past as I was walking from our building to go get some lunch.  The truck had a large American flag streaming behind it.  I was so shaken by that and amazed that none of the people around me seemed to take notice.  

I was coming home from work and I went to buy a monthly bus ticket and at the office (where they sell them) someone was talking about "some planes" there.

When I got home my dad was watching it from TV and I started to watch the whole thing on every possible channels (on satelite TV) I could.

It was so crazy.. you always expect them to safe people somehow but there was nothing anyone could do.

I have never been to USA so I don't know what it would have been like to go to the Ground zero. Before or after. I live in Europe.

I was at work. One of my co-workers had been out of the building on a work errand and came back in to tell us that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I just thought that it was a small plane and didn't think much of it until others started talking about it. We couldn't get on the internet, so we were relying on people to call in and give us updates.

The worst part was that we found out that another plane was in the air (the Pennsylvania flight) and that they were probably going to shoot it down. I have never felt so sad and helpless.

I live under a major flight path and on the 12th there were no planes in the sky for the first time in my life. Very surreal. I can't bear to listen to Bruce Springsteen's song Empty Sky. To this day when I see a plane flying over I pray for their safety.

I woke up early that morning to drive my little brother to school. And then I heard about the event on the radio whie we were on the way. We later found out that school was cancelled for both of us (I was in university then).

I don't think I would ever forget that day. it was a very rainy morning in San Antonio, TX.

i was at home, working. a colleague called and asked if i had heard the news, i hadn't, so i turned on the tv. we were in kind of a shock and just talking about it.

while we were talking, the second plane hit, and that's when it was clear it wasn't just an awful accident. :(

it was a very sad day.

It was afternoon here and I was having a highly suppressed teatime with German ladies. I told them about the airplanes and they did not beleive me, thought I was over-reacting.

My theory about that day is pure instinct made it clear who we love. Either we called or grabbed them or they us. If someone called you on that day, it was truely out of love, do you agree?

I was a reporter for the small local newspaper. I heard about it from the bus driver on my way to the police station to pick up reports. Later that day I (a) had my interview for the day canceled for obvious reasons, and (b) went out to talk to the blood bank people.

I'd been in Geology class as Florida State U.  Walked out of the building to rushing people and eerie quiet.  Got back to my dorm and my roommates were watching the news.

Jeb Bush, W.'s brother, was governor of Florida at the time and resided in my city.  We were aware that Tallahassee could be the next target. 

My son's car was on the fritz so I took him to work before I went to work myself. Because I was late, I heard on the radio that a plane had hit the WTC.  They were joking around - thinking it must have been a little plane that hit that big building (as in "how did they not see the WTC?"). Just before I got out of the car they announced a second plane had hit the WTC, so I went into work and told my boss what I'd heard. He turned on the news. Needless to say we didn't get any work done that day.

My car was also on the fritz so my husband followed me to the mechanic. On the way we both heard about it on the radio. At the car place they had it on TV. We watched it in shock for a while I left my car and he took me to work. It wasn't until that afternoon that I found out about my brother, who worked in Tribecca. (he was OK)

I remember trying to get news on the WWW & all the news sites had simplified their pages really minimalist & I thought "This is how the Internet would look at the end of the world."

The next day I was out for lunch near "the projects" and my car broke down. The thing the mechanic "fixed" was broken. Guess he was distracted.

An old man from "the projects" came over and pushed my car out of traffic with his car & waited with me until a tow truck came. I gave him a hug thanks and he said "we all have to look out for each other," and we both started crying.

I was in Algebra class, I had heard news of the first plane in the car seconds before walking into school and that entire day every class was tuned in to a news channel and yes I remember the day for being sunny but not far from a drizzle here and there in TX

"An old man from "the projects" came over and pushed my car out of traffic with his car & waited with me until a tow truck came. I gave him a hug thanks and he said "we all have to look out for each other," and we both started crying"

This is so touching.

Lindsey what a beautiful story.

I was at school, a sophomore, in second period history class when my English teacher came in and interrupted the class to tell us. I went to a very small charter school and we had no access to TV reception so everyone gathered in the science lab to listen to the radio. Later we all had a meeting to talk about what was going on. The head English teacher told us our trip at the end of the week to Stratford, Canada was canceled because of likely border closings and I very distinctly remember him telling us we should feel ashamed if we were disappointed about that. It was such a gorgeous day, after awhile all the images became completely discordant. It didn't seem that such a thing could happen when it was so perfect outside.

When I got home, I couldn't take the news anymore and EVERY channel had footage and commentary and updates. I later wrote a thank-you letter to the CMT channel because they were the only one not broadcasting the horrible images but were rather playing old episodes of The Wonder Years I guess to provide a sort of buffer. Seeing people throw themselves out of windows to avoid burning to death...God, I couldn't take it in all at once.

I'm a West Coaster and was home asleep with my one-year-old when my husband called from work.  I don't remember what he said except that there had been an attack and the Twin Towers were gone.  I was fumbling around for the tv remote and arguing with him ("They're not GONE, c'mon.  What do you mean GONE? How could they be completely GONE? Is it a bombing like '93?").  I flipped on the tv just in time for one of those shots taken from the south, up toward the tip of Manhattan, where there was just a gigantic, smoking hole where they had been.  It was completely unreal.  My great-uncle lives within a short walking distance of the WTC but was traveling in Europe at the time so I knew he was okay but I was worried about his apartment, where he and his partner had lived for many years.  When they got back it was smoky and VERY dusty and I still worry about his respiratory health because so many people who were exposed (mostly first responders working at the site itself) are very ill and some have died.

I watched entirely too much tv over the next few days and allowed my daughter to see a lot of it, thinking she was too young to understand.  She hadn't even started talking at that point but did shortly thereafter, and for about 2 years whenever we saw a firetruck or a police car with sirens on, she called it "ucky show" (yucky show).  :(

BTW, the astrology of the day is pretty interesting (although probably best discussed in another thread), Pluto in Sag (the Archer) opposite Saturn in Gemini (the Twins).

I was on my second day temping at an aerospace company in northern Virginia ...

I just found this thread topic and thought I'd share.  The morning of 9/11 I was on my way to the airport (a 2 hour drive) for a flight to Indianapolis, then on to NYC.  The day was bright and sunny, I was looking forward to the talk I was going to give in Indiana in the afternoon before arriving in New York that evening for another meeting the next day.  A friend called on the cell to tell me no planes were flying and why.  We hung up and I turned on the radio and could not believe what I was hearing.  I was driving down the road yelling "NOOOOOOO!" all by myself.

I drove on to the airport anyway, confirmed no flights were leaving, then headed across the highway to a large hotel/restaurant place, the lobby was crammed with people who were huddling around a TV in the lobby.  Silence.  That's what I remember, a lobby full of strangers, all silent, watching repeated images of the planes and people running and the cloud of ash and smoke, it was so traumatic.  Everyone's faces were grim, sad and lost-looking, shocked.  I remember being pulled into a warm teddy-bear hug by a complete stranger when I finally lost it and began crying.  To this day I don't know that man's name or where he comes from but when I remember that hug I pray that the Universe somehow returns it to him if he should ever feel desolate and afraid like I did that day.

I got on the phone and called all the people I knew in NYC, they were all okay.  Then I called my good friend who works at the Pentagon, he was not okay.  His wife answered his phone and said they were at the ER and that he was having a staff meeting in an office that was 50 feet away from the place the plane hit.  His Marine training kicked in and he got all of his people out safely, then went back in for more.  He is still recovering; miraculously he had no lasting or serious physical injuries but he could not drive on the Beltway or fly due to severe panic attacks every time he tried.  I remember a few weeks later he called me at like 2 in the morning and asked me to sing one of our ceremony songs to him over the phone; he was barely hanging on.  He's better now, but I don't think he'll ever be who he was before that morning - I don't think any of us will ever be who we were.

Bored - random early Christmas shopping w/family while on cell w/my Gemini soulfriend who was watching the TV (typical Gem - while at work, also on the computer, & talking to me & giving a playbyplay to an office full of people) and then me reporting as events unfurled to people in the store.  Very surreal.

I watched. Had a small business office one and 1/2 blocks away. I did not do anything, I was just stunned in shock. I did contemplate leaving the island on my bicycle via the George Wa. bridge (traffic was closed to car but not for pedestrian and bikes) for fear of chemical warfare. Ironically I got really sick from exposure to the dust and smoke later on. (Not many people outside of the neighborhood are aware that the fires were not fully extinguished until february of the next year. Seriously. The pit was that deep. And that the EPA was way out of line, the area should have been a super fund site.)

Oh and that day my family got in touch with me after 12 years of shunning.

((((isabelle))))  That must have been terrible, awful.  Sending you thoughts and prayers of support, healing and encouragement.  Have you been able to recover from the dust/smoke effects?  And no I didn't know the fires burned until February - how soon (if at all) were you able to re-enter the neighborhood of your office?  I was glad to hear your family found you, and I hope that turned out to be a good and lasting reconciliation for you all.

thanks Peppermint. I appreciate your words. Yeah it was very intense and surreal. Re. the toxicity, I was blessed to finally find effective health support via stws.org in 04 and I'm tons better.  The main detox component is an Ayurvedic herbal program developed by a team of experts in combined toxins, other components are varied, all at low or free cost.

The program is still ongoing & open to all so if you know of any one having related issues and are wit's end, point them to stws.org. People are still signing up for this --actually they have increasing waves of people involved because chemical & metal poisoning are deeply debilitating on so many levels and it's insidious because the severity of the effects were /are generally delayed  (well mostly, not for the first responders, over 600 passed.) facts FYI

Re. your second question it's a looong complicated story! Many needs for adjustments all around, mutable and cardinal people taught me a lot.

Re. my family, in brief I was vulnerable, fantasy prone and have fuzzy-ish boundaries... check out the gas lighting thread...I'd love feed back on my question there. It's odd how toxic energies can manifest and take time to show their colors. Uh I smell dust, feeling a tad stressed writing about this. I smell G0 odors when stressed. Dust is lowest grade. I could explain about the pit fires but it'd take pages and I would diverge even more then I already have.

It was a busy day at work, but nto much work actually got done from listening to the coverage on the radio.  I feel lucky that I was not able to watch the TV coverage until that evening.

I almost broke down when I got to daycare to pick up my son.  As soon as I walked in, I was overcome with the thought of all the kids whose parents wouldn't pick them up that night and would never see those loved ones again.  My son saw me almost cry and asked me what was wrong (did you get fired?). 

On the way home, we stopped at a Church and said prayers for everyone possible.

**Bump**

Found this while looking for something else.

I was in military housing sleeping-in from a late night argument with my (then still married) spouse. I had 30 days Leave which needed to be used or Lose...... so I was on Leave.

I remembering opening my eyes lazily and looking at the TV like it was all a dream. Two black vertical lines with a black slanted line coming off one of them. Cleared my head & eyes , and then realized it was the Twin towers.

As soon as the TV showed the 2nd plane crashing into the 2nd tower , I knew it was an attack and my day was gonna be hell. Yup..... 10-minutes later I get the order to mobilize for Auxiliary Security Force and report to one of our magazines.

My 1st day was horrible , but not even close to dangerous. Next day I was better prepared , cookies (made myself) , soda , brown-bagged lunch. My partner was someone I already was friends with. Any mistakes I made he reminded me of the proper methods , and we developed strategies for preventing boredom..... which leads to carelessness. Elsa's Soldier can tell you..... carelessness can get you killed.

Overall I spent 3 1/2 weeks on this duty. Then was "pulled" off 'cause my then-spouse had filed charges against , which effectively (and legally) prevented me from handling any firearms for 3-yrs. Which also happened to be about 1-month before I retired. **Kinda sucks**

I was getting ready for another year of college in Calfornia, living with my mom. I remember waking up that morning after having the same dream of being underground? It was dark, dusty, ashy, and I was telling people they needed to find a way out. They did, but for some reason I stayed behind, and could feel the glass particles in the ash tearing my lungs as I breathed them in, and realizing I wouldn't be coming out with them, but didn't want them to know that.

That morning, I woke up after having that same dark, grey, ash falling from above dream for the second week in a row, headed for the bathroom, and heard my mom calling my name when I came out. She said she wondered why they would play a Die Hard movie that early in the morning, then we realized it was news, and it was everywhere. We both looked at each other when we heard it was suspected to have been men from the Middle East that did it because, in my case, than meant that leaving home for school was now a very real danger to my self, and I was now the "target" of a lot of American's anger, and rage. Mom gave me a big hug before I left for school, and looked me right in the eyes, saying, "You be careful, you hear me? I didn't go thru all this trouble to hear about you dead anytime soon." I nodded, and headed out into it.

I realized I needed to go to school one way or another, and wasn't going to let fear for my life/body stop me from doing what needed to get done. That night I heard that a young, pregnant woman of Arab descent had been beaten to death with baseball bats by four white men. I was afraid for a long time, and it didn't help when some of my relatives called crying, asking if we were okay as they had some horror stories to report in their larger cities towards anyone who looked remotely Middle Eastern.

I got harassed, and shunned for about a year, and just learned to live with it then, as there wasn't much I could do being so outnumbered. And I was constantly afraid for my brother, and father, and hearing they were picked up, and never seen again. They were fine, save for my dad's loony neighbor calling the FBI saying he had seen aircraft, engine documents in my dad's garage, and that he had showed him pic's of the towers beforehand. My dad is a retired aircraft mechanic, yeah he's got diagrams of plane's everywhere. The funny thing was that I knew the two FBI agents for our county (both nice guys I met in high school), and as they were constantly swamped with too much work, being called out on a bogus snitch didn't make them very happy. They talked to my dad, and brother, nodded, and then went to the neighbor and chewed him out, telling him that they should arrest him, but wouldn't, and to never make false accusations again. : )

But.....I always wondered about those dreams which stopped that morning, and asked my Pisces mom about them. She said that I must've known/been really close to someone that probably died, and that he sounded like a firefighter at the bottom of the buildings. I still shake my head to this day as I don't know anyone from NYC, much less a firefighter. I always hoped--since I didn't see the end of the dream--that if it was real, that he got out, and is alive, and well somewhere.

As I was also in a town with one of the largest air force bases on the west coast, things were a little more stressful as we were told if someone wanted to hit the west coast, we were the number three military target. So it was pretty much, shrug, do what I normally do, and realize it could be my last day on earth. It felt like D-day or something, like someone had just bombed something in the 1940's, and we were all waiting for another attack. Some students, and teachers didn't make it to class either because they were on duty, or they knew someone who had died. The base was on "delta" lock down? so some kids, and some parents got locked on or off base for a day, and I don't remember how they resolved that.

It was one of the saddest, most frightening times in my life, and I realized that the world I knew had just changed for the worse, and my life, and so many others would never be the same again for what a few idiots had done. : (

A couple miles further uptown, in midtown in an office building - too far too see but close enough to smell (the burning.)  Bits of charred paper raining down and a huge black clot of smoke when you looked facing downtown from any avenue.  I was right next to Grand Central, which had a mass bomb evacuation around 2 p.m.; someone in the office next to me looked out the window and saw thousands of people careening out of the train station and then our building security announced, "Exit the building immediately," and the stampede started.  I wasn't really scared until then; utterly shellshocked but not scared.  Until then.  Almost broke my leg trying to get down seven flights of stairs filled with hysterical, trampling people.  And it didn't even make sense; it would take a small-scale nuclear blast to bring down Grand Central, it's as solid as a mountain - but at that point, who knew?  I had just quit smoking and as I half-ran home I said a silent prayer - please let me get home to my animals so I can see them and have one last cig before I die. 

My husband was supposed to be at a breakfast conference that day at Windows of the World, the restaurant on top of one of the towers.  He was furious because he had to cancel at the last minute; ironically, he was supposed to go out to deal with a bomb scare scenario elsewhere (which he never made it to, either; no trains were running by 9:30 am or so on 9/11 so he went to work instead and later that day and successive days worked at the 9/11 site itself.)  He did knew several guys who did attend the conference and they all made it out; they knew the exit routes and fire ratings on that building inside out (as does my husband as he's done fire safety work in NYC for years) and lived to tell about it. 

it was my first day on a new job; a patient had their TV on and we saw the report of the first plane strike....we were watching when the second plane hit..at that moment, I remember very clearly, my very first thought was for my kid brother who was in ROTC and planning a military career..then came the Pentagon and then the rumors of numerous planes unaccounted for.....I went home that evening and watched the coverage for days....it felt like nothing would ever be the same again

I was sleeping, and woken up by my parents pulling into the driveway. they'd shot home from the office, after turning on the radio and hearing the news (especially over the fact that one plane was then flying over Northeast Ohio). The fence outside, was started on that day; dad was sitting on the coffee table, stunned, but then went outside after a while, and worked on the fence.

My sister was in Burlington, Ontario, with her boyfriend, and . A woman whose list I was a apart of, advised people to collect certain homeopathic remedies, in case of any sort of attack (nuclear, or viral, for example). She also told everyone to buy a corn plant, and make a flower essence out of it, giving us instructions. I found myself crying over the smallest things, and then realized that it was a reaction to the essence. (this was a few days after - she said that it was to stop the holding in/suppression of feelings about what was going on, leading to more emotional trouble later on - or something like that).

I was in NJ, recently graduated from college. I was supposed to have been at work in Manhattan but the company pushed my start date back to October. Two things I will never forget: watching the news that night with my family and seeing all those people forced to decide whether to burn to death or jump. Also, once I started work in October, seeing posters of missing loved ones everywhere and men with assault rifles in the transit stations. I felt this enormous sadness.