I Can Still Hear the Silence

September 11, 2001 will forever be embedded in my very soul.  I remember the drive to work listening to 97.3 FM.  I remember when they told of the first tower how I thought that it was such a horrid joke and didn’t know why anyone would say that on the radio, but the more I listened the more I thought maybe it’s not a joke.  I tuned the radio to WOWO.  No, it wasn’t a joke.  For a moment I almost forgot how to breath.  The air seemed thicker than usual.  My mind was trying to wrap itself around such a tragedy.  As I pulled into the parking lot of work the second plan hit.  The realization with the rest of the world that this was no accident was slowly sinking in.  I walked briskly into the building as I had no cell phone at that time and went to the phones set up in the hallway for employees.  I called my mom and dad and told them to turn on the news.  My friend Chris was there with them.  I walked into the call center as I did every day but it was dead silent.  That isn’t a norm for a call center.   I found my desk and was logging into my systems as I saw supervisors wheeling television sets out onto the floor.  None of us could fathom what was going on.  You hear of war on other soils, but it had been so long since one had been brought to our lands, at least of this kind.  There are drug wars and inner city wars from gangs but this was a much larger attack on our country.  We tried our best to do our work.  The company was very quick to offer assistance, people to talk with and breaks from your desk if you required them.    Most of the people who did call into the center were not aware of what had happened and upon learning no longer had want of us, but rather to reach out to their loved ones and make sure they were safe whether they were in this state or another.  Television programming was all eyes on what was happening in New York.  We watched from work as the towers fell.  My mind went back to a few years prior when I had been in New York and saw those proud towers for myself.  The next few days the worlds eyes were glued to the television screen.  All minds were wondering if we were about to go to a war here on our homeland and everyone wanted to know how President Bush was going to react.  My beloved dog Snickers had died in July of that year so I hadn’t been outside as often as I had before he did, but it seemed like that week I stood or sat outside a lot.  I looked up at the sky.  There was a no fly order.  It seemed strange not to see plans in the sky.  The sky somehow looked brighter and time seemed frozen in that moment.  My heart ached for those people that had died on that day and for their families.  I shed many a tear thinking of what they must of endured.  Before they censored it they showed people choosing to jump to their death out of the tower rather than burn.  Magazines captured pictures of people in mid fall.  The horror was all there for anyone to see.  People seemed to come together in that time.  They forgot what color they were.  They forgot how selfish and needy they were.  Everyone was reaching out to help the other.  Flags were at an all-time high in sales.  Work gave us flags for our desk.  There was no one saying we couldn’t wave the flag because it offended someone.  That really pisses me off when someone won’t let our flag be shown in our country because it might offend someone who came here from another country.  I say let them go back.  The flag was here and waving proudly long before they were.  There are whole generations of children that are now adults who were not old enough to remember.  I wonder how many people went back to life as if it never happened after a year or so.  I remember it.  I keep it fresh in my mind.  Evil exists.  True, pure evil that is meant to do nothing but destroy.  I remember the deafening silence.  The skies were empty it seemed.  My heart still aches for those poor people who endured that awful and painful journey to meet their demise.  The brave men and women who ran into to try to save lives and the ones who realized that there was no way out for them.  I can’t imagine anything as horrible, although as I stated true evil exists so there are things more so evil than this was.  Never forget was what we said.  How many have forgotten or placed this horrible day in the back of their minds.  As for me, I can still hear the silence.  It calls to me.  It beckons me to remember, to never forget.  Yes, I still hear the silence of that day.  September 11, 2001.