Last year, on 11 Sept. I was finishing up an afternoon shift at the LDS Family History center in Kaiserslautern. It was a beautiful sunny day. Deb and I were chatting whilst she was counting and I was closing up the center. The phone rang, she cheerfully answered. It was 15:25 --09:25 east coast time zone. Her face went white and I remember her saying "Oh my God!!!" Very strong words for her.

It was her husband in Greece who had been listening to the morning news radio. All we knew was that an airplane had crashed into the WTC in NY. We knew nothing about the second one until 10 minutes later, her boss called and told her to close up and go home immediately. My husband then reached me on my handy to tell me what was going on and that he didn't know when he would be home -- just much later.

AFN radio in my car was broadcasting a commentary of impressions. I walked in my house to turn on the tv in time to see the second tower fall. I didn't even know that the first one had collapsed. I think I just sank to the floor in front of my chair. I couldn't believe what I had seen. My first thought was, "Why would anyone do this?" The chaos, the confusion, the grey dust in the air --- it looked as if a nuclear bomb had detonated.

When they showed what happened to the Pentagon, I was even more devastated. I used to know people there. I lived only 15 miles away for 5 years and had occasions to go there on official duty.

My husband came home around 8:30pm that night. Everything in our community was to be shut down for the next 4 days. Commissary, Post Office etc... --the base was empty of life. The yearly Bazaar would be cancelled the following weekend first time in 42 years. All we could do was watch the tv news. Our security and lives had changed from standard to high level. The next day was rainy and cold... or so it seemed.

Our one TV channel and radio station broadcast 24/7 with this tragedy straight for the next 3 weeks. It became unescapable constantly reminding what had happened -- how many missing, how many dead. Eventually, I left it off just to save my sanity.
About a week or so later, my dogs and I were attacked when 2 dogs escaped their yard. We had dealt with problematic dogs before, but this was the first time one of my dogs was physically assaulted by another and I could not help her. No blood was spilled, only bruises, but I could not regain any semblance of my usual confidence. Apparently it was a line in the sand. Dreams of the towers falling, survivors crying, my dog dying, and helpless me paralyzed would not allow any sleep.

I couldn't stop crying. I did not eat. I avoided work and my school. I would sit and stare and remember all of the dead. My husband didn't know this was going on, he was gone long hours due to the new workload. I don't blame him either. :)

It took a week for me to leave my house. Sour milk in my tea helped to make it possible :( :rolleyes: I started seeing friends and acquaintances again who were going through their own pain of this day. I feel as if I fought my way out of a deep fog back to some type of normalcy.

I still wonder about those who really lived and experienced this tragedy.....how do they get through each day, when it was more real to them than to me?????? They couldn't just change the newschannel or radio station! It was their life and home this happened to.

Those of us over here were on the outskirts. We were safe and sound in a sympathetic country. I still feel rather "fakey" when I think about the emotional rollercoaster that I went through. It didn't happen to me, so where do I get off having the sorrow and paralyzing fear that kept me housebound and sleepless for a week? When I had my accident in January, many of these fears and emotions returned with a vengeance. I was helpless and then eventually alone with my thoughts.

I managed to push everything aside during the summer and go on with my life. You all don't know how much help you've been to me in these past 6-7 months. It's been pretty rough this year. Too much alone time :rolleyes: :)

Now it's the "anniversary". AFN has promised somewhere in the neighborhood of 37 hours dedicated to its coverage through midnight Thursday night. Images and music still choke me up. I still want to cry and rage at the horror of it all. The thought of the "Rolling Requiem" that they are doing worldwide brings tears to my eyes. Mozart's Requiem has always made me feel this way....world participation in memoriam just enhances this sensation of being unable to breathe.

Remembering makes it feel as if it just happened again :( I have the same physical response as I did last year. I knew I would feel this way and I really did all I could to just not think about today and tomorrow. Only vids and dvds were going to be on the tv. I'd listen to the German radio stations ---but I then think that I"m typically avoiding the unpleasant aspect of life. Will I regret not "participating" in this? I just don't know anymore.
Thank you for letting me get this off my chest though. I really can't talk about it to anyone verbally. I write much better/clearer than I actually speak. I also work hard at being a better listener than talker :) Everyone has their own emotions to cope with. Mine are no more important than theirs.

My heart and all my sympathies goes out to those in New York, Washington DC/The Pentagon personnel, and those families whose members were in the 4 crashed airplanes. With over 3,000 dead, it is impossible to include everyone by name, occupation, or personality.
best wishes to all,
sara

Please feel free to add your thoughts to this thread concerning this horrible event last year.

Dear Toodles, I do hope sharing your fears and feelings with your friends on this board has helped in some small way to make you feel a bit better. I doubt if there was anyone in this country who didnt feel great sadness and sympathy for all the people in the USA. I still think about the tragedy on a regular basis, and remember the fear I felt as my daughter works in the center of London, and it could so easily of been our country and not yours. Please take some comfort in the fact that millions and millions of people world wide will be remembering today, in their thoughts and prayers. God bless, take care today everyone.

One of the biggest questions people have when such disasters happen is 'Why ?' People need answers and it's sometimes really hard when there doesn't seem to be any.

My belief in God has helped me to accept that, while we are on this earth, we are only able to see life like the back of a piece of tapestry - a mixture of colours and threads and no real idea of what they represent. It is only when we reach the other side that we will be able to see the whole picture and understand why things happened as they did.

Sara,

I think everyone was affected by this in some way. I like Philippa was in absolute terror all afternnon as my husband, mum and Dad all work in central London and they were evacuating the stock exchange etc and they were still having to stay. I was at work and all i could do was search the net for as much info as was avaliable but so was every one else! When i finally got home all i could do was watch the telly - i just couldn't believe my eyes. I felt numb. I think we constantly watched the telly all evening. My husband has even recorded some of the news footage & kept it and we have the newspapers as well - I am not actually sure what they are for :rolleyes:

My husbands uncle only works less than a block from WTC and he was trumertised for months. Some of the debery hit his building when the planes hit and when we walked out on to the streets he said all he could see were bits of bodys where people had jumped from the towers. :( He is normally a very chatty confident person and he just sat there for weeks not talking just watching the telly. :( One of there friends died in WTC.

My thoughts are with all those who lost someone in this terrible event.

Tracy

Dear Sara

I've picked up Champdogs here at work today - I work in the City of London, in one of the buildings that is, supposedly, a "target". At 10.45.a.m. this morning, the switchboard will be shut, the doors will close, the escalaters will be shut down, we have been requested to turn all mobile phones off, for a memorial service. Lots of us here lost colleagues and friends in New York - a friend of mine was actually on the phone to a colleague in WTC1 when the plane struck.

Having worked in the City for the last 20 years or so, I've experienced the feeling of unreality after a bomb has gone off, leaving devastation in its wake. To see a file of papers fluttering down from the sky two of three days after a bomb has exploded is a very strange experience.

Our feelings are still strong - but I believe that the best way to honour those who died is to live well.

Love & peace to all

Margot

Toodles,

You have said it all I guess.

I still can't believe it happened I really can't and yet I remember everything about that day last year like it was yesterday.

I find the scary thing is that some people belief in their cause so badly that we will never ever been free in our lives from this.

My day will be filled with mixed feelings and confusion.

Pam

Sara, I was in Donegal and we had just come back from a walk on a beautiful isolated beach when a young man stopped to talk to the dogs and then said "Isn't it terrible what happened in America?" We listened to the car radio on the way back, and then watched the planes hitting the towers and the peopel falling again and again and again on the crackly old TV in the caravan. We wanted to turn off, but couldn't stop watching. Between doing that we were making frantic mobile phone calls to the US because Ian's cousin's husband works in a building beside the WTC (it later collapsed too). Eventually about 10 pm we heard that Ed was OK, but had seen the whole thing and knew many of the dead. He still won't talk about it.

For the next few days there was nothing but sympathy in the UK, but then the "America asked for it" comments began to creep into the UK & European press. The Guardian even ran a supposedly "cynical" or "humourous" special edition. I'm sorry to say it was worse in Northern Ireland than in most places. Comments like "They gave the IRA money didn't they? So they deserved a taste of their own medicine" were made. I was so angry about that. Maybe you know that Ian & I worked in the two 'frontline' Belfast hospitals when things were bad there. He was around when 'the Troubles' were at their very worst, but I probably saw more because I did Accident & Emergency medicine throught the early '80's. And it doesn't bloody matter what the scale is. Each person who dies, who is injured, who loses someome, even who loses a little bit of their soul from seeing things no one ought to see, thanks to terrorists is a real human being, and they all suffer like what they are - real, ordinary human beings. Terrorists - I don't are what brand, how intellignet they are, what their rationale is, what their cause is, how much they believe in what they are doing - are the scum of the earth for they see people as political points, not real living people with families, loves, hopes, sorrows.

I'm with you and Loki's Mum - the best way to honour those who died is to do our best live well and to try to be a little better at feeling and listening and understanding other people.

I have felt very emotionally moved in reading all these Posts, that clearly come from the hearts of the Writers.

All life matters, and when a tragedy on a scale like this happens, it makes us feel so helpless and vunerable, not only for those we do not even know, but brings an awareness of the fragile cocoon surrounding those we love and our own sense of being.

Facing our own private fears, I pray that we all learn that Faith is reaching out in that darkness, and knowing and finding that our hand will be gently held. God Bless

Denise.

I have lit a candle today in memory of all those who died and recognition of the pain and loss endured by those who survived or lost someone.
I can't imagine not having my husband in my life, I can't imagine him going to work one day and then never seeing him again, but that became a reality for thousands of families a year ago today.
My brother is in the army and currently in Afghanistan, I pray that he stays safe.

It is true Sharon terrorists are the spawn of the devil.
There is no place for them on this earth but I would like to think they still have to pay for what they have done .
My thoughts are with America today also.
God give the grieving strenght. Mari

Sara, you have as much right to feeling your grief as anyone else. First and foremost, it was an attack on America and all that our country stands for. As an American you are entitled to take it personally. It felt like my own family had been attacked, and your family is ultimately who you are and where you get your security from. Those acts of terrorism shook the very foundations of the stability I took for granted. Yes, people of all nationalities were killed in the attacks, but the hijackers flew US airlines into American landmarks. It wasn't the UN building. It wasnt NATO. It was the Pentagon. My sister-in-laws brother was working at the Pentagon that day. Thank God he escaped unharmed.

I guess I just want you to know it's okay to be upset by what happened. This is the most traumatic thing I have gone through since losing my parents when I was 10. Try and draw strength from the fact that you are over here supporting the mission, making a difference. You may not be an analyst, or flying a fighter jet, but you can support your husband, the children at your school and the other family members you spend time with. It all counts. And you matter.

{{{HUGS}}}
Kory