Tuesday, September 11, 2007
My 9/11.

September 11th, 2001 found me barefoot and pregnant with Rivky. I was in the kitchen, washing dishes (because when you're barefoot and pregnant, you have to be in the kitchen).

My friend called me up, sobbing about a bomb. She was walking across the bridge, leaving Manhattan. The cell service was lousy, and I wasn't understanding her well. I thought she said her husband got caught in a bomb scene. "Are you saying Shalom's work was bombed?" "No No, the World Trade Center was bombed." At that point she didn't know the story, and I didn't either.

Yaakov came into the kitchen, and we turned on the radio. We listened incredulously as the story unfolded, as the towers collapsed. I look back and I marvel how I experienced that event without television.

I remember sitting on my rooftop, watching the smoke rise from Manhattan. I remember looking at the sky, a sky without planes. I remember walking out of my apartment and seeing police cars. I remember walking to my friend's house, when she finally made it back to Crown Heights.

It seems like each year I've seen or learned a little more about that terrible day. What really gets me is the rawness of it all. Seeing video footage and hearing people freaking out. Women screaming and crying. Men yelling and cursing. Normal people reacting to a most abnormal situation. It is their voices that make September 11th real to me.



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My Photo Name: Fancy Schmancy Anxiety Maven
Location: Chutz l'aretz - Outside of Brooklyn

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