Remembering

I am remembering this day 13 years ago where, in Washington DC, the day started as a beautiful, sunny fall day, and turned into one of disbelief, horror, fear and overwhelming grief.

Shortly after 9:00 am at the hospital, a colleague informed me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We sat in bewilderment at the computer searching for news and it just kept coming. We could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon from our windows. Rumors abounded….that there had been a bombing at the state department and on the metro as well. My husband’s office is downtown near the White House and I feared for his safety. Communication was difficult - phones did not work, text messaging was unreliable. It was hard not to feel panic.

Our hospital very quickly shifted into full disaster mode. The trauma and burn teams prepared. Staff scrambled to get patients discharged so there would be beds for the victims.

I believe a total of 12 burn victims were brought to us. I happened to be on the burn unit when the first two arrived. It was more than any of us could wrap our brains around. I had seen trauma and burn victims before, but seeing it this time, in conjunction with the knowledge of the simultaneous horror occurring at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, left me with my own case of PTSD for some months. As the afternoon went on, we waited for more victims to arrive and slowly the realization began to sink in… there would be no more. There were no more survivors.

When you are from D.C. or NY, there aren’t many degrees of separation from those who lost someone that day. Two days later, we learned that a friend of ours had been on the plane that hit the Pentagon. She worked for National Geographic, and along with a National Geographic photographer, was accompanying a small group of D.C. school children and their teachers on a trip to Catalina Island, in California. My husband had known her and her husband since high school.

I have been to the 9/11 Memorial in NY at least 3 times and attended the dedication of the Pentagon memorial with our friend’s husband. They are both such beautiful, quiet and moving memorials, but it hurts to be there.

As I write this I realize how close to the surface the wounds still remain. It doesn’t take much to open them. Nevertheless, life goes on, but we are no longer the same and somehow we have adapted to a new normal, where this horror is part of our history, and we will always remember those who lost their lives.

Here is a previous blip from the 9/11 Memorial in NYC. A rose seemed appropriate again today.