When the World Changed

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Ever since 9/11/2001 I have looked at each September differently. It has always brought autumn and even though there are beautiful colors it makes for a sad time saying good-bye to summer. This Sunday when I heard on the radio that 15 years had passed since the World Trade Center towers fell in my hometown NYC I was rather shocked. So much time had passed but in my heart it still seemed like it all happened just yesterday. I know that most everyone has a story to tell about that day and they know where they were at the precise moment when the terror acts began. In a way I was lucky to be a whole ocean away already living in Riga, Latvia but that didn’t make it any less horrible for me. Riga time was 4 PM and NY time 9 AM. I had spent a usual day at home. My hubby Martin was earning extra money at that time working at a match factory not far from our house. He arrived home around this time and asked me to go to a neighbor’s house to get money that was owed him. He was tired so I said I would go. They lived several blocks away and as soon as I arrived the man’s wife gave me the money. Then she asked me if I knew what was happening in the U.S. She had the cable channel turned on. So I walked into the living room and took a look. At this moment the twin towers couldn’t be seen and there was just a lot of smoke. The full impact hit me when I heard that they had fallen. I remember falling to my knees by the TV and their brown dachshund decided that I didn’t look too good and gave me a good licking on the cheek. After that I just remember dashing to our closest store, grabbing a liter of vodka and some soda. The cashiers must have thought I was out of my mind or something really awful had just happened and it had. I was almost at my gate when the neighbor from across our road came to her gate and inquired if I knew what was going on in NY. I told her I knew and was going to pour myself a strong one. Martin already had heard on the radio and so we sat and we felt worse and worse. The next day I made calls to everyone I knew and then the actual reality set in. While I was working in Manhattan I had always worked as a marine insurance agent in the large, drafty old buildings with rattling elevators. I liked that better than working in a large, skyscraper where you couldn’t even pull a window open. Anyway my last workplace was just several blocks from the towers. If I had still been in NY I would have been right in the midst of it all. I know I would never have accepted a job in the towers. I had been in there plenty of times but on very windy days I could feel them slightly shifting. I knew that was alright but it still made me feel odd. I do know that at that time in 2001 many marine insurance firms had moved into the towers and to this day it makes me feel odd not really knowing if some of the people who were lost were from the many different insurance firms I had worked with and who I had spoken to many times over the phone. So when it comes to each September 11 I find myself not really feeling all too well and I always offer up my prayers in memory to all that has been. One day the world was right side up and the next it had turned topsy-turvy and what happened then will never, ever be forgotten.