9-11

“Where were you when the world stopped turning that September day? Did you shout out in anger…Did you look up to heaven for some kind of answer…or did you just sit down and cry?” – Alan Jackson lyrics


The events on September 11, 2001 did not touch me personally, but to this day I can’t hear Alan Jackson’s song, “Where were you when the world stopped turning?” without a lump forming in my throat and a tear coming to my eye.

On that day in 2001, Mr. Clark and I were driving down the east coast towards home, having just dropped our daughter off at art school in Providence, Rhode Island. It was an emotional trip – our youngest child now in college, so many hopes and dreams at stake, all so very far away.

We got the news of the terrorist attacks in a spotty manner over a few hours time. The radio in the truck we were in didn’t work very well and we were on a stretch of road where reception wasn’t good. First we heard something about the Twin Towers being hit, later something about an attack. On down the road, we heard a scratchy report about a plane crashing into the Pentagon; then another plane went down in Pennsylvania…all domestic flights; no way to know how many were injured, missing or dead. What in the world was happening?

The next town we came to was Nags Head, North Carolina, so we stopped for lunch and to figure out what was going on. We went into the first restaurant we saw – a fish place. You could’ve heard a pin drop - all eyes tuned to TV behind the bar. We had no way to comprehend the things we were seeing…a kind of a shock set in. Good Lord! is this real?

We immediately called our daughter and to our great relief, she immediately picked up. She was in the campus book store buying art supplies. Far from television, radio news or reality, she had no idea what was going on. We debated going and getting her, bringing her back home – after all, who knew if there were more attacks planned?

She vehemently told us she would be fine and promised that if “something else weird” happened, she would follow a contingency plan we had yet to work out, to get to someplace safe where we could come pick her up…How crazy was all this?

That evening we came up with a plan that involved our daughter going to an old friend’s house within easy driving distance of Providence. It was inland, not close to any potential terrorist attack points. Our daughter’s roommate had a car and we made the girls promise they would keep the tank full, so that if they had to leave quickly, they could.

The next day we stopped at an Army surplus store and I put together an “Emergency Box” of things I thought a girl faraway, within reach of a potential terrorist attack, might need: a gas mask, some water purifier pills, some pepper spray, food rations, a first aid kit, a small fire extinguisher and one of those all temperature blankets. I also enclosed $100 bill with the strict instructions to leave it in the box in case of an emergency.

My daughter called when the box arrived. “You’re freaking me out, Mom,” she said. “Baby, the whole country’s freaked out,” was my reply.

I was in technical school that fall of 2001, training to be an EMT. (Working on an ambulance had always been my fantasy, so I made it my mid-life crisis/reality once both kids went off to college.) We talked a lot about 9/11 during and after class. We wondered if we could handle rushing into a building everyone else was rushing out of. We wondered if we would have the courage and stamina to work tirelessly hour after hour, day after day, month after month the way those heroes at Ground Zero did. We wondered if we had what it takes to simply show up at a wreck scene, stay calm and do what needs to be done. We wondered if we would graduate…

I did graduate and went on to work on an ambulance for the next few years. My daughter graduated, too. I remember feeling proud and relieved that the $100 bill was still in that unopened “Emergency Box,” as we packed her up to move her back home. And, I remember being sad as the aftermath of 9/11 unfolded – war; sickness for the Ground Zero rescue workers; pain and unending sadness for the families of those lost in the attacks.

Now, there’s a hoopla about a “mosque” (or is it a Muslim community center) proposed near Ground Zero. There’s a big debate; everyone has an opinion; emotion is running high. What is the “right” thing for those Muslim Americans to do?

President George Bush put it clearly and, in my opinion got it right, when he said, during a speech to Congress and the nation on September 20, 2001: “The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends…Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them…Americans are asking, ‘What is expected of us?’ I ask you to uphold the values of America and remember why so many have come here. We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith.”