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.
