My annual reflection of 9/11~The Day I Remember~ originally written 9/05

I was sitting at the computer. Maybe I was on EBAY I don't know for sure. We had dial up then so it was rare to get a phone call when I was on the computer. Occasionally we'd get knocked off but not often. The fact that the phone rang that morning is miraculous.

We had caller ID so I knew who was calling. When I answered, I was smiling. You know that feeling you get when you know you're love is calling, just to say hello, and it makes you all giddy and warm inside. The feeling was gone in an instant. He was in such a panic. I thought at first one of the guys had been hurt. I kept thinking please God don't let it be one of our "boys" It's hard enough to be the bosses wife and be the one to call a woman and tell them their husband has been hurt, (we decided long ago he and I that it would be better if I did it. I have lived that particular nightmare, receiving that phone call that says he’s been hurt and he may not be coming home. I was better able to talk her through it and I'd be able to stay on the phone for as long as she needed me to. He on the other hand, could focus his attention on the man down.) I always fear the day that it will be someone I am attached to, one of our gang, our boys. They work side by side watching each others backs, always aware of what a dangerous job they have. They are a close group of men. Somewhere along the way I became the “den mother” to this rag~tag crew of amazing men. He was so panicked I thought for sure one of our boys had been killed.

Slowly he started to make sense and I began to understand what he was saying. Between telling him to calm down and to repeat himself I was beginning to see the picture. A plane had hit the tower. They had heard the roar of an incoming plane, turned, and watched it happen. Then I really got scared. It must be bad, he doesn't panic. He wouldn't be this upset unless it was really, really bad. Then it became a little clearer. Some of the men on the job were standing next to him and I heard them counting 16, 17, 18 on and on. I asked what they were doing. "Counting floors" he said. Why, I asked? “Because Eddy's son works in that building” he answered. The counting continued for what seemed like eternity. They ticked off the seconds as they counted off floors. The sound I heard from the phone was one of the most heart wrenching sounds I've ever heard. It was primal and guttural, full of anguish and anger and from the depths of Eddy’s soul. And I knew, he'd finished counting, and his son was dead.

"Come home" I said," I want you home." Tony said he'd already sent Joe to get the car out of the parking garage. He said "Things are going to be nuts around here and I'm sending the men home. This is one big mess and I don't know how the plane could have been that far off or what happened to the pilot, maybe he had a heart attack or something but I'm not staying here. Turn on the news and call me if you hear anything."

I immediately called my mom in Colorado and told her that Tony had called to say there had been an accident in the city and to please pray. It hadn't even hit the news yet. And we talked for a few minutes and hung up saying we'd call each other later.

Then the news finally started to broadcast it. I watched and wondered just how close Tony's job was to this. (In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t know just how close he was. He was only a block away.) Thinking how awful it was for those poor people in there.

Then, the second explosion rocked the world. I remember thinking this doesn't happen on American soil. I, like everyone else, knew with that second explosion that this was no accident. My mind went numb. I could not think, I could not speak, I don't remember walking across the room and sitting on the couch. But when my mind began once again to take in the world around me I was sitting there. The phone rang and I held it like a drowning woman who had suddenly been given a lifeline. When I put the phone to my ear I heard him repeating over and over, "oh my God honey they're jumping. They've got to stop jumping." I don’t think he will ever forget the sound that comes from a human body falling all those stories and impacting the concrete below.

I realized he was still on the site. My blood ran cold. It was taking Joe longer than I had thought to get the car. He was still there. He wasn't on his way home and safe. He told me they would do the best they could to get home but it may take a while. He’d call me as soon as he’d crossed the bridge and was out of Manhattan. (it turned out that he was one of the last cars across the bridge before they shut down all the bridges and tunnels. There was only about 3 or 4 cars behind him.)

The next little while was a series of phone calls with my mother and sisters. I kept trying to get in touch with my best friend but she and her husband had gone shopping and neither of them owned a cell phone. I remember thinking over and over Tam, call me, I need you. Hoping somehow she would hear me.

I tried to call Tony’s cell phone but never got through again. The lines were just so busy and by that time they had turned the phone waves over to emergency personnel. (Did you know that they can make cell phones only work for certain phones that have a chip in them identifying them as emergency personnel and such? Neither did I.)

As hard as I was trying not to panic I know I was beginning to loose it. I could feel my mind trying to take refuge in that dark place where you don’t have to think. TJ was in school and I was going about the routine of putting Maggie on the afternoon kindergarten bus. Kat was 3 and Rita a year. I think I fed them, got them dressed, went about a normal routine so they wouldn’t be scared. All the while trying to figure out how I was going to tell our children if their father didn’t come home.

I was on the phone with my mother and we began to wonder if there was any biological warfare on the plane. Running through the possibility that he may be bringing something home to the kids and I. I wondered if maybe, just to be safe, I should try to reach him again and tell him to stop at a hotel until we knew so as not to take the chance. We couldn’t take that kind of chance with the children. I told mom if I did end up renting a room, she was to start driving here. My kids would be with Tammy, I told her where my important papers were and some other things she needed to know. It took Mom a minute to understand what I was doing but when she did, she began to cry. If Tony couldn’t come home, I was going to him. If he had been infected with something, I wasn’t going to let him die alone. I was choosing to die with him rather than let him die alone. I remember thinking how I had time to make arrangements for my kids and all those people didn’t have that chance. How many of them didn’t have wills thinking they had time to do it later.

That was when my mom decided I needed to talk to my brother. He was the only one who could keep me together. And I’m sure mom thought he could talk some sense into me. He was ex-military and would be able to answer the question of the possibility of anything being on those planes that was released into the air. He and I are very close, if anyone could keep me from shattering it was him. Bless him, the poor guy was working nights at the Denver Mint and had only been asleep for about an hour. They woke him up and he called me. He reassured me that nothing could withstand that heat. We were talking about that and how surreal this was and he was keeping me calm about the fact that I hadn’t heard from Tony and I didn’t know if he made it out of the city.

I was folding laundry in my room but my back was to the TV and the sound was muted so the kids wouldn’t hear anything. My mind had returned to some semblance of normality and Jim and I had begun to chat about life and mundane things waiting for me to hear from Tony again. He wouldn’t let me off the phone until I heard something. He was waiting with me. From two thousand miles away, my brother was holding my hand. Suddenly, Jim very softly asked me if it was possible that Tony never made it off the site much less out of the city. I told him “yes because the last time I talked to him he was desperate to help people. If Joe couldn’t get the car out of the lot they may have decided to stay and go see what they could do to help until things calmed down enough to get out of the city.” He very gently said “honey you need to look at the TV “ I turned and looked. The sound was still down so I couldn’t hear anyone talking about what was happening. I knew something was very wrong but it didn’t register at first. Then it hit me, there was only one building. “Jim, where did it go?” “Honey it collapsed, it’s gone. Is there any way Tony was in that building?” “ He could have been, I don’t know. I don’t know where he is.”

I don’t remember the moments that followed. I know I was on the phone with Jim and he kept me talking. I have no idea what was said. I’ve never asked him. I do remember saying at one point that people say they knew when their spouse or loved one died. “I’d know Jim, if he was gone I’d know. I’ve loved him since I was 16, I don’t remember who I am without him. I’d know if he was gone” I held onto that thought with everything I had. I prayed with everything I was that it was true.

It was just over an hour later that Tony’s car pulled in the driveway. I told Jim it was okay, he was home. I told him I loved him and hung up. I ran down the stairs to meet Tony. I didn’t want to wait for him to come inside. I had to get to him. We met in the garage. I stepped into his arms and held him. Neither one of us said a word for a very long time. There was nothing to say, there were no words. I had seen in his eyes all I needed. It was there, the horror and pain. He had seen things that no one should. He had seen into the mouth of hell.

My time to be shaky was over. My brother had seen to it that I was settled and strong by the time Tony came home. He knew how to “talk me off the ledge” and had done it without me knowing. I wonder if he even knew what he had done for me. It was clear as glass to me, Tony would need me to hold him together more than I could ever have imagined. I took a proverbial deep breath and my crisis was over, I was going to be fine. I would cope and get on with life and be okay.

I set about the task of holding my husband together. The first words he said were “where are the kids? I want them out of the school.” I went and got TJ from school and we never put Maggie on the bus. He needed his children. He needed to touch and hold and hear them.

It was a long night. We talked a lot and cried a lot and watched the news. And somewhere in the wee hours I knew he was going back. I made him stay home the next day and rest and get his feet back under him. I needed one more day alone with him before we stepped back into hell. Then he went back….and our lives will never be the same.