Reflections on 9-11: I want to feel safe again

By Angeline Olschewski

Septemer 17, 2007 | It was six years ago but when I close my eyes, the flashes and the sounds make it feel as if it was six minutes ago. I had just stepped out of the shower when I heard my mother yell that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Towers. Freak accident, we all thought. So I toweled off, pulled on my plaid robe, and twisted my hair into a towel turban. By the time I left the bathroom, the second plane had hit.

We stood there, paralyzed, not fully understanding how two planes could get so off course, not willing to entertain the possibility of an attack. But the words were used. Terrorist attack. Reports told of the vice president moving locations, though they would not disclose where, thereby averting attempts on his life. The images flashed back and forth between reporters and towers, smoke and ash, people running and screaming. We couldn't turn away. We couldn't change channels. I just stood there, my arms holding the robe tightly to my body in an effort to control my trembling, my head occasionally shaking in disbelief.

Then it happened. A reporter outside the Pentagon was reiterating how little was known about the two previous planes, and suddenly an explosion caused him to duck. He panicked, then quickly composed himself and spoke to the audience in that way reporters do, using a tone of authority with words that added up to say they knew nothing: "There was just an explosion of some kind. It came from the other side of the Pentagon. We will report to you any details as they become available."

Then minutes later we knew. A third plane had hit the Pentagon. I didn't realize then that I had just witnessed the murder of my friend.

I could feel myself devolving into a pathetic bathrobe creature, standing there, staring blankly at a screen while plumes of smoke poured out of the tallest buildings in New York City. Without warning, the first tower collapsed. It just imploded. I felt my stomach lurch, the vomit rising in my throat. I swallowed hard, closed my eyes and prayed with ferocity. My legs didn't work. I needed to walk to my room and ready myself for my job. I would be late as it was, but my feet refused to move. A fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, but no one could be sure if it was related to the other three.

The images flashed quickly, repeatedly, and suddenly I was in first grade, watching the Challenger explode on perma-repeat. My mother behind me was sobbing, hot tears staining her cheeks. I just stared, thinking of the people who worked in those towers, the firemen rushing in, the people in the street gaping at the debris raining down, the innocent travelers who boarded a plane in D.C. and expected to walk off in L.A. The second tower fell 23 minutes after the first. Now I didn't know what to pray for, or for whom, or if it mattered. I felt numb.

The 30-minute drive to work crawled. The radio offered no new information, just recounts of what we had watched all morning. All I could think was whether or not my friend Liz's husband, Brady, who worked in a high clearance section of the Pentagon, was alive. Even Liz didn't know how to get hold of him. She was never given a number to reach him, so each day he had called her. But that Tuesday, her phone did not ring. What could she do but wait?

I, like most Americans, had no idea how to help, so I stood in line that evening to donate blood. What normally would have taken 45 minutes took three and a half hours, moving slowly forward from chair to chair as we inched our way closer to the blood draw stations. Every 30 minutes we called in to see if there was news on Brady. Nothing. Scoot forward. Scoot forward. Nothing. Scoot. Scoot. Nothing.

For seven days we would know nothing. Assumptions were made, but I never allowed myself to stop hoping that he was in a coma, sans identification, and when he awoke, we would get a call to say he was alive the whole time. But Monday's phone message didn't include a coma, or a miracle. Dental records had identified his body.

A week's worth of hope spilled out of me in a deluge of tears. The deep sobs bruised my chest and swelled my eyes. I wanted to be grateful that we knew, unlike so many families in New York City, but I had no room for gratitude. Brady was dead; Liz was a widow at 25. I had just seen her in March, excited about life, glad for the new job that had moved them to the area, the same job that would cost her husband his life. What now? I wrote a letter to express my deep sorrow for her loss, but nothing I said fixed this. Nothing I wrote made the hurt smaller. I'm not sure when I fell asleep that night, but I remember wishing I would not wake up.

Six years later, the question remains. What now? Today my heart is heavy, desperate to right this evil, desperate to help people remember and understand what was lost that day. We didn't just lose towers and strangers, faces known only to those who loved them. We lost hope, and a feeling of security. We lost the comfort of innocence and naivety. We lost our childhood.

I haven't slept well in six years. I want to feel safe again. I want to board a plane without fearing who else might be taking my flight. I want to pack a full tube of toothpaste in my carry-on. I want to feel good about bringing children into this world. I want back the life I had on Sept. 10, 2001. More than all of that, I want to fight this; I want to take back what was lost and fight for what is good. But my only weapon is words, and today they fail me.

NW
RB