No Average Day

Twelve years ago today would have just been any average day. My Mom was driving me and my brother, Sean, to school. It was sunny, summer still felt very present. I was in the front seat, I just started third grade. She gasped and looked at me. The newscaster just spoke. I asked her, “Where are is that?” “That’s where your Dad works.”

My Dad, I now know, was a commodities broker on the floor of the Exchange – that’s how he called it. He sold coffee, coco he was in a bunch of the pits, screaming and selling commodities in a circle. He was one of the tallest men there, one of the loudest too probably. He worked there, near the Twin Towers. I knew the towers.

My parents had been divorced since I was three, I was used to driving over the Throgs Neck Bridge at that point in my life, it was ruitin for us. I would see them, and I knew every time that my Dad worked there.

I couldn't focus in class because I knew that. I stood there, saying the pledge of allegiance and I saw my Dad’s face. I just started to cry. I don’t know or remember how I got there, but I was moved to a room with other children whose parents worked in New York City. Other kids that were scared.

My Mom came and picked me up. There was no way I could stay in 
school, but I shouldn't have gone home. I remember the coverage. I sat there and watched in my living room. The second
 plane had already hit. I remember it falling. There was one
 video shot from the ground in the Financial District. It plummeted to the ground, the ash and debris was
 everywhere. It hit like
 a giant wave, a wave of gray, and people were running. You couldn't see the color of
 their shirts, the ash completely covered them and they sprinted in front of
 the camera in horror.

 Fearing death. There were thousands of papers on the ground. Papers from inside the building, work papers. People’s papers.

My Mom had tried calling him all day. Even though they didn’t get along, she was panicking. She was calling everyone: my Dad,
 Grandpa and Grandma - just everyone. It's hard to explain, exactly, how it felt. I just remember hugging my best friend, Christina, and not letting go. She came over right after school with her mom, who was holding mine. Christina crying and holding me. Her face all scrunched up. We had just found out that he was alive. My
 Mom told me that Dad was okay, that she talked to Grandpa,
 that he been in contact with him.

My Dad; He missed his subway by a few minutes and never made it to the
 Exchange. He ended up walking across the Brooklyn Bridge that day with
 thousands of other people. Thousands of people who survived. He knows so many who didn’t my step-mom, Michelle,  recently told me. They both do.

That weekend, I went to my Dad’s. The lingering smoke was eerie and painful. They were so much bigger than everything else in the skyline, and now I see this low, low arch. That’s where they were – that’s where they belonged.

Last year, I was in a class and I had flash backs to these moments. We watched the coverage, the moments that literally changed my industry forever. For good and bad. Those images scared me, deeply and I didn’t know how badly until last year. I was
 very uncomfortable in class because I started to see and feel everything,
 but I stayed present because I honestly had not seen many of those
 videos. It’s important to see them, to know, to remember and to deal with the pain. It's odd that I journalism and that all of media 
has changed because of the single most horrific event in my life.


It's not the media's fault, though. The anchors had no way of controlling it when they saw the plane go into the second tower. They could not control the live feed, they could not warn viewers about anything because they could not explain for themselves what was happening. Now, when they can, you can hear anchors and reporters say, "viewer discretion is advised" to potentially prevent post-traumatic stress syndrome according to one of my psychology professors.

This has greatly effected how I see news and how I am comfortable covering it. I am very conservative with the way I judge and display images because of this, because seeing these images at nine in the morning can be debilitating, can haunt you like they have stayed with so many.

Over the summer, I went with a cameraman who I became very close with to a pier near One World Trade. He and many other cameramen remember this day very clearly. I could tell that it still haunts many.

That day, my cameraman was off work and was called into work. The only way anyone could get into NYC that week was if they had a press credentials. The Fox 5 newsroom set up cots, every newsroom did. People worked non-stop, no one took a break.

Another cameraman who I was very close to was there, at ground zero and captured some of the most terrifying images of people, people jumping because they saw no other choice. No hope.

After my experiences, I feel so fortunate to have met these men, these cameramen who I respect greatly. Who saw this day like so many others, who hid behind their lens and ran away from the horrors. I hide behind my lens covering events today, trying to desensitize myself to pain so I can tell people what’s happening. We can't push these feelings aside, though. We have to address them, talk about it and get help. Try to recover. Many still are trying. 

I looked at One World Trade a few months ago, with my cameraman, and remembered the low arch, now filled with new hopes and dreams for our country. My Dad came home that day when so many children and families were waiting, waiting when their loved one didn’t. Waited in front of TV screens, hoping they’d see their loved one there, running – alive. I know I did. 

This day would have been an average day for all of us, but now we will never forget. Nor should we.