Liliana was 13 weeks old and we were in the car on our way to a doctor’s appointment for her first check-up.
At 10.30 a.m. I stopped for gas en route and the attendant asked if I’d heard the latest about the World Trade Centre. I thought it was the start of a joke.
“It’s been blown up.”
Pardon? I was already muddled from three months of interrupted sleep, driving with a map and a compass as I still did not know my way around my new province and the wee babe was making noise in the back seat.
I quickly tuned in to the CBC and listened to what the rest of the world was learning in horror.
I thought about the time I’d joined a friend for lunch on the 54th floor where he worked.
My ears had popped as we went up and up and up in the elevator.
I’d felt the building sway as we ate our meal in the windowed cafeteria.
I’d felt relieved to be back on terra firma later that afternoon.
When we returned from the doctor’s appointment I sat in front of the television and spoke on the telephone with journalist friends in B.C.
It didn’t take long to find someone who knew someone who’d been killed in the debacle.
But mostly I thought about the choices we make. And where life takes us.
Have a good day, everyone.
Our Mai was 9 months old and walking around the coffee table. I turned the television on to watch while I drank my morning coffee. The first plane had already hit. As I was watching came news of the second hit.
Our Mai kept walking around and around the coffee table.
I remember hearing panic, uncertainty – all of this in the voices of those on air. Just not able to put pieces together in the zero time frame alloted.
I remember also thinking in the first minute or so that this wasn’t real. That it was a joke. That I was not watching news.
I sat there just staring at the television.
I telephoned Tim who was at work near Niagara Falls. He had heard nothing when I called. He thought I was making it up. As I was speaking to him I heard that a plane had hit the Pentagon. Among all the horrors I was terrified that he was so close to the border and Niagara Falls I started to cry.
A short time later I couldn’t stand it anymore.I picked up the baby and walked the road to a neighbours.
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