Where Were You?

Where were you on September 11th, 2011?  I am sure you can remember every detail.

I remember.  I was a nurse at Johns Hopkins Children's Center.  I had just taken a child to the operating room and was in the elevator heading back to our floor.  A gentleman got on the elevator with me a floor or two later, and said very matter-a-fact "a plane just flew into the world trade center".  Being a young 26 year old - I looked at him waiting for the punch line of the joke.  But he looked at me and just nodded and I knew he was not joking.

I ran off the elevator on my floor to the closest TV.  Many of my nurse mates were gathered around the TV watching the events unfold.  We stood motionless.  Powerless.  We tried to shield the children on our floor from what was happening on TV.  We asked the parents to please use the lounge TVs so that the children could not see what was happening.

Disbelief was what we felt.  You just don't know anything, and your mind is racing.  I had a cousin in New York who didn't live far from the Trade Center.  Did she know what was going on?  I called Mat and he had seen the news as well and they were watching it at work.  No one knew anything.

As we stood watching, the second plane flew into the second tower and screams were heard all over our floor.  We clung to each other.....still not knowing what this meant.  Terrorist?  We were too young to think that.  But we knew something was happening and that it was terrible.

Johns Hopkins Hospital is in Baltimore, MD.  We were less than an hour from the Pentagon.  When news spread that the Pentagon was hit, our hospital went into full lockdown.  We weren't allowed to leave.  No one was allowed in.  Our shifts were extended indefinitely until they got a handle on what was going on.  I remember I was supposed to be working an 8 hour shift that day, but ended up working 12 hours until we were allowed to leave.

The shift coordinator at the hospital came to our floor.  She had gotten word of the lockdown and tried to keep people calm.  We tried to occupy the kids.  Many were too young to have a clue what was going on.  But it was hard to work.  Hard to concentrate.  Hard to keep our eyes off the television wondering if there would be more planes.  More unknowns.

The shift coordinator told us that she had gotten notified that we might have to move children - the least sick -to make room for incoming injured from the Pentagon.  She had no idea how many, or when, but that we needed to start to decide which children we could move.

As time went on, and the news continued to be more and more devastating, we knew no one would be coming.  Soon, all planes had been grounded, and we were allowed to go home.

The day was exhausting.  We watched the towers sway and fall.  We watched a plane fly right over my parent's home town and crash near by.  It was all just too much to take in.

We were just bystanders, and I remember all of this.  Imagine what it was like for those who were there.  For those whose family members called them to say they had been hijacked, or that they were too high in the towers to get out.  To call and say their final goodbye.  Imagine what it was like for them.  What it is still like for them.

Life has gone on.  Even for the families of the victims of 9/11.  Many people have found new love and remarried.  Many have found ways to honor their lost loved ones.  A beautiful memorial now stands where the towers once stood.  10 years have passed.

But we haven't forgotten.  Not one detail.  8:46 am.  9:02 am.  9:37am.  10:03am.  2,977 people.  8 of them were children.  That catches me every time.  8 little kids.  Riding on airplanes going on vacation.  How frightened they must have been.

Our world will never be the same.  We as people will never be the same.  But we must move forward.  We must move on.  Because if we don't recover the terrorist win.