I have to take a moment to pause and post this as it hits so close to home for me personally.
I am electing to "borrow" and repost something I saw posted last year as it is so poignant. I hope you take a few moments in the next few hours to reflect.
On this day, 22 years ago (9/10/2001):
🔹️246 people went to sleep in preparation for their morning flights
🔹️2,606 people went to sleep in preparation for work in the morning
🔹️343 firefighters went to sleep in preparation for their morning shift.
🔹️60 police officers went to sleep in preparation for morning patrol
🔹️8 paramedics went to sleep in preparation for the morning shift
None of them saw past 10:00am on Sept 11, 2001.
In one single moment, life may never be the same.
As you live and enjoy the breaths you take today and tonight, before you go to sleep in preparation for your life tomorrow, kiss the ones you love, snuggle a little tighter, and never take one second of your life for granted.
As I noted with a fellow follower, it was wild to see that most people on here are too young to have experienced 9/11.
I think it's been a while since I shared my 911 story, which is nothing dramatic. It is something that unfortunately you have to experience to fully understand.
I was well into my job as a kiosk manager at the mall in Corpus Christi. My routine would include getting up, going to the gym, going home and getting ready for work going to the bank and then setting up my stand for another day.
Inside the mall I kept a radio going and the only station it really got in was a country station so I would play CDs in between listening to the country music.
My first thought was somebody knocked over a radio antenna tower or possibly a cell tower.
That day I don't recall any news the radio driving to work, but it is possible I had a CD in my car on as well. I went to the bank and the post office & nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
I went to work and opened up at 10 am. I turned on the radio, and first they got heard was "We have confirmation now, the second tower Has Fallen."
Slowly, updates got more frequent and more disturbing. And again, we didn't know the things we know now as far as communication. So then I was like, "Okay, aprivate plane or private jet somehow got off course and crashed in New York City." Which was pretty bad, but again, nothing that was going to change the world.
As the hours clicked by, more people that were already in the mall had that thousand yard stare on their face. As this happened, fewer and fewer people came in. Then, stores in the mall began to close. A lady who in Bath and Body Works came in near hysterical because her husband, who had something to do with the Naval Air Station in Corpus, was suddenly called in for Duty.
Did this mean the Naval Air Station was about to be bombed? Our city has several large refineries. Would those be targeted?
On the radio they were interviewing people in New York on the street, and some of the people were so calm. I know now they were in shock. At the time, I thought this had to be fake. I honestly thought someone hacked into the CNN or AP News service and planted the story as some kind of joke.
I had started that day so happy because U2 had just announced a tour and we had a little bit of money so I was hoping we would be able to see them again. I had left a note for my husband saying as soon as I hurt anything about the tickets going on sale, I was going to buy them. Would he called I asked him to turn all the TV and confirm because
"I think we are under some kind of attack. "
One of my older Mall kids, this tweaker kid we called Sloth, came up to the stand and stayed there with me the whole day. We just kind of stood and listened to the radio together and watched the people going by, looking more and more uneasy.
My boss called around 4:00 p.m. and told me to just go ahead, close up, and go home. I had to take the bus home and it was surreal.
The bus ride was completely silent. No one said a word. Everyone was staring out the window like they had never seen the world around us before. Like we were just waiting for some alien invasion or something that would distort our reality further. Gas prices immediately shot up.
What I got home the news was on almost every station but at that early point you could still go to other stations and not have to see it. Within 2 days, and I am not kidding you, the only way to get away from coverage and seeing those horrible images over and over again, was to go to Animal Planet.
I would come home for work, turn on the tv, sit in front of it like a zombie and cry. The day after I stopped at the grocery store either before or after work I can't remember, but an older man that I did not know came up to me and took my arm and asked" Can I talk to you? I need to talk to somebody."
I said, of course, and he looked me in the eye and said, " Why is the Red Cross asking everyone to donate blood? They won't find any survivors there. There's no point in donating. Everyone is dead."
I don't remember what I said back I just remember what he said to me and of course I never saw him again.
It was a time of having everything you knew as your normal daily reality move it away. It was a time of Terror not necessarily from outside forces but from your fellow man because people were running around and killing anyone who looked even remotely Arab including several people from India.
There were several Middle Eastern shopkeepers in the mall and I clearly remember one couple who always ran a jewelry kiosk after 9/11 the wife stop coming and I'm sure the husband told her is too dangerous just let me go. My husband even told me Point Blank if anyone asks your ethnicity, don't tell them.
It makes me sad that it has been turned into a meme or a joke or punchline or a song lyric. At the time it was like an absolute unexpected horror being thrust upon everyone in the world.
6 months before my husband and I had gone to WrestleMania in houston. We met this crazy group of soldiers from Fort Hood and had the best time hanging out with him before the show. Would 9/11 happened all I can think was those guys are being sent out there to die. To this day me and my husband will stop and remember them and hope that they are well because they were such great guys.
If you were old enough to understand what had happened, it changed you.
