Never Forget
The morning of 09/11/2001 I was 20 years old and in my apartment getting ready for work. Oh, and I was late (what else was new). Just as I was about to make my way out the door Nicole (my cat at the time) plopped down in front of me and demanded a belly rub. Not only did she demand a belly rub, but, she refused to move until I gave her one. This in turn made me slightly more late for work, but, I just couldn’t deny Nic. a belly rub.
I made my way to the express bus stop and waited with the few other commuters for the bus heading towards downtown. I was already anxious about the time, and as we hit the BQE I became edgier because it was the slowest I’d ever seen it. As we made our way closer to the Battery (Tunnel) things became sickeningly eerie. We were moving way too slow, and cell phones on the bus started ringing. You could see smoke coming from the city, but, nobody knew what had happened or what was going on. “There’s been an airplane accident.” I kept hearing from all over the bus, but, there was no further information. People were scrambling to make calls and because of this more often than not there was a lot of busy signals since the Cell phone Towers were being overworked. This didn’t help anyone’s fear on the bus.
At about 9:05 AM, the bus driver and I looked up at exactly the same minute and saw the second plane crash head on into the towers. I was in utter shock and so was he, as we kept asking each other, “Oh my god did you see that?” just to be sure our eyes weren’t playing tricks on us. This is the only time in my life I’ve ever seen that area of the BQE come to a complete and utter stand still. People were standing outside their cars watching burning bits of paper float down from the sky. I was terrified.
We got closer to the tunnel entrance and they told us “No go back. It’s closed. No one’s going into the city.” So, we turned around and took the streets of Brooklyn all the way down to Bay Ridge. This took a very long time, as everyone was doing the same thing. We stopped by 86th st. and got off. There were two women who were middle-aged who took control of the bus, making sure we stuck together, making sure we knew where the bus was parked, keeping an eye on everyone. At 20, I was the youngest and I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I was for that.
We all loaded into Hinches, which was jam-packed, to listen to the news and use the pay phone. I couldn’t get through to my family right away and this just added to my fear. When I finally did get my father on the phone, I begged him to call my mother and let her know I was alright, and then I broke down. Right there by the pay phone in Hinches, sobbing hysterically. For me, it was an almost out-of-body experience.
It took us 3 hours to get back to the island from what is normally a half hour ride. As I got off by my father’s house, I saw loads and loads of people getting off the express buses looking ragged and just wanting to head home.
I called my mother right away (she’d been teaching on the island and hadn’t been able to leave work). I was also relieved to find my sister (who went to school in the city) was ok. (She ran.) My family wanted me to stay there for the night, but, I just couldn’t. All I wanted to do was to go home and turn on the news.
So, I did. Like everyone else in the country I became very addicted to the news. Work was out (I worked very close to the towers on John St. that whole area was just shut down for weeks). If I had actually been on time for work that day, I would not be here now. My bus stop was directly across the street from WTC, and around the time the planes hit was around the time I normally got off the buses.
A few years after the crash had happened I overheard a couple on the boat talking about their sightseeing itinerary that day for NYC. “Well I want to see WTC.” She said. “What for?” he asked “It’s just a large hole in the ground.” At which point I jumped in slightly and said, “Well actually it’s a gravesite.”
I am an incredibly lucky woman, with a horribly embedded image in my head that I’ll never get rid of no matter how hard I try. I don’t need to turn on the television to see what happened that day. I don’t need a news story to spell out the details because they’re in my head. I don’t need one day a year to remember, because I will never forget.
,we’ll get to that ),and you’re willing to push yourself, then there are no obstacles. (Not even several days of no sleep and 
