Reflections on 9/11

My memories of 9/11 are different than the vast majority of the rest of the country -- I was in the capital of Zimbabwe, Harare, on a short-term missions trip. Even after 10 years, it's difficult for me to process the events of that time because my trip so radically changed from what it was supposed to be to what it turned into.

On 9/11, we were just getting back to our rooms after spending the day out talking to people. I remember getting a knock on my door from my team leader around 3 pm, telling me that his wife just called and told him that a plane hit the World Trade Center. At the time, we didn't know if it was a small plane, if it was an accident or what. We turned on CNN in our rooms and saw the scope of what had actually happened. As we watched, we saw the 2nd plane hit the other tower. I remember distinctly my team leader saying that he was sure that Osama bin Laden was involved somehow. He was in Kenya when the American Embassy was bombed, so he was versed in the Islamic extremist movement.

My first thoughts were towards my friend Emily who was at school at NYU. She was the only person that I knew was in NYC at the time. Any internet connection was impossibly slow at that point because it was (1) 10 years ago and (2) I was in a developing country. I was able to get off an email to make sure that she was okay and also to my almost-boyfriend (now husband) who worked in downtown Chicago. He said that everything was fine there and that they were sent home early.

The rest of that day was a blur. Our team went out to dinner and the restaurant had the coverage playing over and over. We ate our meal and talked, incredulously, that something like this could have happened. When we heard that all flights had been grounded, we wondered how we were going to get home.

The Zimbabwean people were so gracious to us -- they would ask us if we were Americans and then extend their condolences. Everyone seemed to be in shock over this, not just us.

I finally got a line out to call my mom a few days later. As it turned out, she was actually in New York City for work on 9/11 and had a meeting scheduled for 9 am in a building directly across from the World Trade Center. The meeting got postponed to noon that day, so she was still in her hotel when the planes hit. She described the scene as apocolyptic as everyone evacuated Manhattan covered in soot and ash. She was so upset and was sobbing as she worried about me. I told her "Mom!! I'm in Zimbabwe!! You were in New York City!! I'm WAY safer than you are right now!"

We were scheduled to come home on September 20th and we were still worried about how we were going to get home since all flights in the US continued to be grounded. I was thinking that instead of my Harare -> London -> Chicago route that I might have to fly into Toronto and have my parents pick me up from there and then take the bus or train to Chicago. As it turns out, we were able to leave Harare on time (and boy, was I sweating bullets boarding that plane) and land in London Heathrow. Heathrow was a DISASTER -- since all of the airlines were feeling out the new world post-9/11, they decided that they were no longer going to transfer luggage and were making everyone claim their luggage and then re-check it in! You can imagine what the lines were like. I had to wait in a heated tent (and it was COLD and rainy in London in mid-September) for hours to even get into the airport to check my luggage in! My flight was delayed for hours due to the backlog.

I finally got into Chicago and was so thankful to finally be home and back with my countrymen, but it felt very much like I missed a collective national experience. Even though CNN was available in Zimbabwe, we weren't able to watch it all of the time. We didn't get any of the US network channels and no US print media. In retrospect, I'm glad that I did because the constant rehashing of it is difficult to watch, even 10 years ago, much less 2 or 3 days after. But I do feel like I missed much of the national spirit of unity that many people talk about in the days after.

In the intervening 10 years between then and now, I've gotten married, had 3 children, put my career on hold to raise those children, bought a house, and accumulated many more friends. There are times when I fear for my husband, commuting to downtown Chicago for work every day. But, in reality, the chances of him being the victim of a terror attack is slim to none. I am raising my children in a post-9/11 world, which doesn't mean a lot in our day-to-day lives, but I'm reminded of it when I watch the news or when we fly and all of the hoops that we have to jump through now. Does anyone else remember when we could show our driver's license, put our carry-on bags (with full-sized bottles of shampoo and contact solution!) on the conveyor belt and walk through security with our shoes on? And when we could go to the gate and meet our loved ones as they disembarked?

All of this is so minor compared to what so many people lost on that day -- husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, sisters, brothers. I cannot imagine the horror of knowing that your spouse went to work and then watching those images on tv, always wondering if they were killed instantly or were one of the ones who jumped or were killed when the towers fell. Looking at your young children and realizing that they will grow up without a father. It's heartbreaking.

I'm thankful to all of the first responders out there -- firefighters, police officers, and EMTs. What a difficult job you have. And despite my occasional cynicism and confusion about the US military, I'm thankful for them for protecting our country!