Brothers Unaware

I apologize in advance if this post seems disjointed or meandering. I'm still having difficulty trying to get all of my ideas in order.

At 8:45 this morning, a commercial jet crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. I was unaware of the tragedy at that moment. I was stuck in traffic on my way to work, cursing the gridlock on I-75.

At 9:03, a second plane slammed into the south tower, exploding into a massive fireball next to the smouldering tower beside it. I was pulling into the parking garage at a rather unsafe speed, desperately looking for a spot close to the stairwell.

Hell of a way to start the day, I thought. Understatement of the year.

Within a minute or two on the floor of my department, I was briefed on what little was known about the tragic events in New York. Suddenly traffic and parking woes didn't seem like that big of a deal.

In between frantically trying to do my job, I sent out a panicked email to Geekman. I knew he was somewhere in New York, and I wanted to make sure that he and his loved ones were OK.

Trying to get information from the news websites proved nigh impossible, since everyone in the nation with internet access was trying to access CNN at the same time. I gave up, and turned my radio to NPR in hopes of getting information.

At this point, the rumors started. Some turned out to be true, some not. The Pentagon had suffered a similar attack (true), the Capitol building was on fire (not true), there had been another plane hijacked (true) and it was heading directly for the White House (unconfirmed).

(Even though I don't read it much anymore, I read the thread at Three Way Action. It's a pretty good example of what was going on in pretty much every single office in the world today. The disbelief, the support, the wild rumors. They had to roll the thread over in a matter of hours. Frightening.)

Zappagirl called shortly thereafter. Timmy had called her around 10:00 to make sure she was aware of the disaster, and she continued to call all morning with updates from the television. (Well, when she wasn't calling complete strangers in foreign lands.)

All throughout this, I didn't know how to feel. Disbelief, at first. Things like this don't happen in real life. This was something out of a rejected Die Hard script. Bruce Willis was going to show up any minute and kick some terrorist ass, right?

Disbelief gave way to shock, then fear, then sadness, then anger. And I didn't know which one was the right thing to feel. I'd heard from my friends, they were all safe - a great relief. But what about all of the other people?

Somewhere on the east coast was a guy sitting in his office, looking at the massive pile of work in his in-basket, thinking about how much he really didn't like his job all that much, trying to decide if he wanted to get a salad or chicken lo mein for lunch. And then suddenly, he was gone.

And there were thousands more just like this guy. Just regular working Joes and Jills, going about their daily business, trying to decide if they should take their kids to the zoo this weekend, planning for vacations and weddings and new houses and futures that disappeared in flames fed by jet fuel, in a devastating wall of soot and ash.

And miles away I sat in my office listening to news reports, thinking of those thousands of people that I would never meet. Maybe I never would have met them even if things had gone differently this morning, but their anonymity didn't affect me any less. Each one of them was someone's child, someone's mother or father, someone's husband or wife or lover or friend. Gone in an act of terror and evil, taken away by a faceless enemy that wouldn't even give us the satisfaction of knowing where to place the blame.

It made me feel very small and powerless, because in actuality there wasn't a whole lot I could do to make the atrocities being suffered in New York and Washington any better. Suddenly nowhere was safe, not even where you work. Not even the Pentagon.

The only contribution I could think to make was to give blood, which apparently was a pretty popular thought. The phone line to Hoxworth was busy, and there have been stories of four and five hour waits at New York hospitals to donate.

(I will keep calling. I will get in there and let them poke me in the arm with the Very Big Needle. I will get my thank-you juice and cookie.)

But for now, I'm stuck watching endless footage of the horrible events on CNN, and trying to deal with the fact that I now have yet another negative moment of living history to pass along to future generations. And that bothers me a lot.

I don't like the fact that most of the history I've wiitnessed is related to horrible tragedy. Yes, I can say I saw the first man walk on the moon (OK, I can say I was in the same room...I was 16 months old, so I wasn't paying much attention to the TV). But I can also say that I remember when President Reagan was shot. Or the Iran hostage crisis. Or the Oklahoma City bombing. Or the LA riots. I can remember where I was when the Challenger exploded (in my dorm room, skipping calculus). I can remember where I was when the Columbine shootings took place (at work in my parents' store). I can remember putting off going to the hospital to do my research on my patients for nursing school so I could stay at home and watch President Bush (the other one) announce the start of the Gulf War. I can remember sitting at the Warehouse on a Monday night, then in my office downtown the following day while the Cincinnati streets erupted into riots.

This isn't the kind of history I want to pass along to my sister's children. I don't want to feel this kind of anger. I don't want to live in a world capable of creating this kind of violence and fear.

My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who has lost someone in this horrible national tragedy, whether I knew you or not. When it comes down to it, we're all part of the same big huge family, and my heart hurts just as much for you whether I know your name and face or not.