Memories, four years later

Oh, God, what a day. I work in Washington, DC, at 12th and Pennsylvania -- halfway between the Capital and the White House.

We were getting ready to go into a Very Important Meeting at 9 am. We got an email announcement about the first plane hitting the WTC. It was a short blurb, and I didn't think a whole lot about it. Kind of "oh, that's terrible! Now where is my presentation?"

By the time we got into the meeting, the bigwig we were hoping to meet with was glued to the TV in the conference room. I finally realized that it wasn't a minor thing that had happened. It hadn't really occurred to me how MANY people worked in that building, and that very few in the floors above where the plane hit would be able to escape.

We milled around, trying not to watch, trying not to NOT watch. The dark wood and leather scent seemed so strange to me when people were burning and dying somewhere in the smoke before our eyes. I can still remember it. We watched as the second plane hit. The meeting was officially cancelled.

We went back to our offices, trying to figure out what to do. Go home? Stay here? We didn't seem in immediate danger, in our heavy marble-facaded Federal building. But we were in the heart of DC, and nowhere near New York.

Then the Pentagon was hit.

The White House officially evacuated at 9:45. I think I got out of our building by about 10. Rumor had it that the Metro was closed down (untrue), so I thought I had no way to leave. A friend who actually had a car offered to drive me home. So we got to the garage and got in the car. Took us 20 minutes to get out of the garage.

There we sat, gridlocked, bumper to bumper, unable to move at all, in a red little convertible on a surreally beautiful fall day. We watched as armed military personnel began walking the streets of the capital. We heard sirens in the distance. Every car radio was tuned to news. We heard/felt a large "Whomp" and heard rumors that the State Department building had been bombed a few blocks away. (untrue)

Cell phone traffic was congested, but I was able to finally get through to my husband's work to make sure he and our daughter were safe.

We heard that the towers had fallen. We heard that there was a fourth plane. We knew it was headed toward us. The White House? The Capital? Either seemed a very likely target.

It took us over an hour to go two blocks. After that, it eased up a little. My normal hour and a half commute took almost five. If I had taken Metro I would have been out of the city and on my way home remarkably quickly. (Needless to say, the evacuation plan for Washington DC got a serious revision after that day. They've even practiced it, after the annual 4th of July fireworks on the Mall this year, to see how well it works to get huge amounts of cars out of the city quickly.)

I was glued to the TV as soon as I got home. The Federal government was closed the next day. I couldn't turn off CNN. I could only watch and pray to try to warm the cold little ball of tension and disbelieve that lodged in my stomach.

That day changed our lives in so many ways, big and small. My husband's anger led him to try to understand HOW someone could do such a think in the name of God, which has led him to study and visit with more religions than I've ever dreamed of. We have become much more politically conservative as a family (though I am still a registered Democrat and am much more "Democrat"-leaning on issues such as environmentalism, education, and poverty). We created an emergency plan for our household, began to stock 3-5 days of food and water, and have a "meeting place" outside the city. I began to come to terms with the idea that if something happened downtown, I might be separated from my family for a long time, and to plan accordingly.

The other day, I re-read the Time Magazine special edition that came out right after 9-11. I watched "The Flight that Fought Back" docu-drama on Discovery Channel, about the fourth plane -- the one that was headed toward us. That cold, clenching feeling in my stomach returned, but it was not as fierce in the glow of understanding and preparation since that time.

We've learned a lot since that day. About vulnerability, and anger, and hatred, and faith, and planning. And we can continue to learn and grow. If nothing else, there is hope that springs from the ashes of even such a tragedy as this.