Where Was I?

I was driving to Arizona State on the 101 Northbound from Chandler. There was still construction going on that I thought would never stop. I was thinking about an assignment that was due that day that I was worried about. I was excited for the Diamondbacks, they were doing so well and had a shot at the World Series. I had the classical station on and the music stopped. NPR came on and announced a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

What did I think? Oh my, a small commuter single engine plane must have had some major problems...I thought how terrible, maybe 20 people had been killed.

I got to the Institute building, was lucky enough to get a parking spot...in fact, there were quite a few spots left, which was odd. I walked in...and the TV in the lounge was on. That TV was NEVER on. In fact, there were many times where I wondered why a TV was there in the first place.

I saw the World Trade Center. I could tell from the gaping hole and massive amounts of smoke rising from it that it wasn't some small plane. Minutes later I watched the second plane hit the South Tower. Live. At that moment, the world knew that the United States was under attack.

I tried to get other students in the lunch room/play room/multi-purpose room that were studying for tests that weren't going to happen that day to come watch the TV. 

And then the South Tower fell. And then the Pentagon was shown on TV. The North Tower. A field in Pennsylvania. I watched as thousands of people died that day.

ASU allowed classes to go on, but no one was required to attend classes or was marked down for missing class that day. One of my classmates, who never returned, knew someone who had been killed. I never knew where, how they were related...

As soon as I had access to my email, I emailed my high school friends who were living in NYC asking them to let me know that they hadn't gone on some crazy whim to the WTC that morning. They were both fine and far away.

ASU is just a few miles from Phoenix's major airport, Sky Harbor, so planes coming in low over A Mountain was a normal everyday thing for us, although it unnerved me often enough to see them flying so low. After a few hours, there were no planes in the air. It was eerily quiet on campus the rest of that week. I remember seeing the first plane fly in and watching it with big eyes and a big heart.

Traffic getting home that day was the lightest I had ever seen it at rush hour on that massive construction zone known as the 101 Loop.

I was living with my Grandpa at the time. He and my step-Grandmother were in Canada that day and were supposed to fly home that day or the day after. They ended up finally getting back 2 weeks later, since International flights were at that point, for obvious reasons, under far more scrutiny and under far more restrictions. And because the flights that were reopening had already been booked by other passengers.

I was home alone that night. I cried myself to sleep.