The View

In the summer of 1996 I went o New York City, New York for the first time in my life.  I used my savings to buy the plane ticket and pay for the other expenses involved in the trip.  It was actually a college class I took and so a group of us students and professors traveled together.  I have great memories of that trip because it had been my dream for YEARS to visit this city.

Because the trip was focused around the class, we had stops to make with fashion designers and home decor professionals (we were all Fashion Merchandising or Home Merchandising majors).  However, there was also time for general site-seeing and the places I chose to go were The Statue of Liberty and The World Trade Center.

 

As I drove to work on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 the news broke on the radio.  I was devastated by what I was hearing, as were so many.  I continued to drive to work at the World Trade Center building in Dallas, where my office was.  Only a few hours later I would make the drive back home, after they evacuated our building.  There I sat, on my sofa, sobbing as I watched the tragedy unfold before my far-away-from-it-all eyes.  One thought that kept coming to my mind was how I was up there once.  How I smiled up there, on that top floor of THE tallest building I had ever been in, taking in the view of one of them most amazing cities on the planet.

I also remember the area at the bottom of the building and a statue that was down there of a man, sitting on a bench.  Those of us going up commented on it and I think we even pondered taking a picture with him, but these were the days before quick pictures with our phones, and no one took the time. I stopped before we walked into the building and craned my neck up to try to see the top, looking like a full-fledged tourist, and not believing that I would be going that high up into the sky.

We were not up there very long, only long enough to look around for a bit and take some photographs.  For a brief moment I thought about what it would be like to work in such a tall building, and if I would be scared to do so.  But it was a fleeting thought and one that left me once we exited the building too.

 

That was the only time I was ever up there.  It was the only time I ever will be.  But there were so many people who called those buildings their work home.  There were so many people for which those buildings became something other than that on that terrible day. Something ominous and deathly.  And that breaks my heart in so many ways and for so many reasons.

When I think about what went on that day I try to focus on the heroes.  Those that saved lives because it was their duty and those that did because it was the right thing to do and they were able.  I cannot even imagine the horror that came to some that day.  I try to block that out and remember the beautiful view.

It’s the only way I can handle it all, in my mind.

 

 

Edited to Add: I was inspired by Melisa to choose a name from the 9/11 memorial site and remember someone who lost their life that day.  I chose Candace Lee Williams from Flight 11.

I googled her name, here is what it says about her life on legacy.com:

How to comprehend the terrible symmetry that returned Candace Lee Williams to the place of her triumph, the World Trade Center? A 20-year-old student in the cooperative work-study program at Northeastern University in Boston, she toiled from January to June at Merrill Lynch as an intern on the 14th floor of 1 World Trade Center. “They loved her there so much, they took her out to dinner on her last day, and sent her home in a limousine,” said her mother, Sherri. “Then they wrote Northeastern a letter saying, `Send us five more like Candace.'”

After finishing midterm exams in her June-to-December schedule, instead of returning home to Danbury, Conn., Ms. Williams agreed to meet her Northeastern roommate, Erin, at her home in California. “They’d rented a convertible preparing for the occasion, and Candace wanted her picture taken with that Hollywood sign,” her mother said. So on Sept. 11 in Boston, Candace boarded Flight 11, which was then hijacked and sent crashing into the same trade center tower where she had worked. “The airline told us she was seated next to an 80-year-old grandmother on the plane,” her mother said, “and I know that Candace was consoling that woman to the last.”