9/11

Today is Patriot Day which I think is a dumb name. I didn't suddenly love my country more because there was a mass killing of my fellow Americans while they were minding their own business. Let's call this day what it really is- Day of Sorrow.

I was in Cow College and living in my parents' house when the World Trade Center was destroyed. I didn't have class that day, so I was lying in bed sipping coffee. My father came in my room and told me I should turn on the tv because 'they have bombed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.' His statement made no sense to me. Who? Why? The Pentagon?! Impossible. No one in their right mind would attack us. Are we at war?

I actually lay in bed for a long time trying to sort those questions out. Nothing made sense. I couldn't even imagine it. I tried to picture faceless soldiers invading my hometown and I couldn't get an image of that either. I gave up and went in the living room.

My father had the tv turned up to a very loud volume and his favorite news anchor was saying the same things over and over. It still didn't make sense. I still didn't understand Why and the Who I had never heard of. But at least were weren't being invaded anymore because the people who hated us were mostly dead. This didn't make sense either. How can a war be waged if your first line of attack all die? 'I'll show you! I'll kill your people AND myself!' Yeah, that'll teach us. Now you have to send another bunch of fools to kill us and themselves in the process. What happens when you run out of fools? Of all the Middle East cultural differences, the suicide bomber is the one I just can't grasp. I don't understand why self-destruction is considered good. 

Our television stayed on all day and possibly all night. It was on when I went to bed and I remember the news invaded my nightmares of deserts and bombs. I remember waking up over and over, hearing the tv, and wishing I could just SLEEP. The next morning the tv was still on when I got up. My father was wearing different clothes, so I assume he slept at some point. Mom was ignoring the tv. She was also ignoring the newspaper. Normally she reads the whole thing. She does the Jumble, she looks at the 'obits' as she calls them, calls anyone who might need to know if someone has died, checks the classifieds to see who has foreclosed, and then she formulates her opinions about whatever City Counsel has done. This last one is the most important because likes to argue with Dad. They have a whole ritual now. She gets the paper first and places her arguments during her second cup of coffee so she is more sharp. Dad will still be on his first cup and therefore slower on his rebuttal. If he does manage to prove her wrong she leaves the table. Sometimes he follows her and they keep an argument going until lunch time. Then they watch the midday news and argue about that.

I decided I needed to ignore the media too. I was tired, tense, angry. I wanted to cry. Dad watched tv all day long and finally on the night of 9/12 I asked him to turn it off. He was really angry at me for not being more concerned. Mom weighed in and said she couldn't take anymore either. We all went to bed pissed off at 8pm.

I began having very realistic nightmares. I remember one dream where I can hear bombs being dropped on our house. My parents are very stupidly standing at the backdoor watching them fall. I yell at them to go in. It's hard to make them see we are in danger. I finally get them in and I realize our dog is still outside. I can't leave him so I run out. For some reason he is far away from the house, past the greenhouse and the shop, in the field between the vineyard and the orchard. I scoop him up and start running back. I realize I will not make it. I can see a bomb overhead falling slowly towards me. The dog is heavy. The field seems big and empty. There is no where to hide. I think maybe I can get in one of our old trucks but I know I won't make it to even that paltry shelter. I kneel on the ground, tuck myself around my dog, bury my face in the dead grass, waiting to die...

I would always wake up at this point, still feeling like I was dying, wanting to go in the house, being terrified that I was covered in bio-chemical agents that would infect my family. I worried that they would die slowly before my eyes and it would be my fault. We were safe and I went out. My heart would be pounding. I would be drenched in sweat. The reality felt like a dream. How could I really be safe when I just died? I died a lot in those weeks after 9/11.

To this day I still cannot watch/read stories about 9/11, not even the miracles. I tried watching one about people who were saved by firemen. The nightmares started again that night. I just can't look, can't watch, can't read. Can't really think about it, still can't understand why.