I Remember

Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer; Good Morning America/ABC News

It was like any other normal homeschooling morning in our home. My son was thirteen years old and my daughter was six. As part of our normal school schedule, the kids and I would watch Good Morning America together as we ate breakfast. It was a way for us to start the morning as a family, learn about current events, and enjoy some fun lifestyle stories before hitting the books. I was making breakfast, my daughter was coloring, and my son was working on schoolwork. On the living room TV, Good Morning America’s broadcast with ABC news anchors Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer, doing what they did best.  It was like any typical weekday morning . . . or so we thought.

PHOTO: Reuters, Sean Adair

I remember it vividly. At 7:46 a.m., Diane Sawyer announced that there was a possible explosion at the World Trade Center. We now know that it was American Airlines Flight 11 crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.  All network television programming was preempted and became a flurry of scattered and frantic reporting.  My eyes were glued to the screen and what I was witnessing.  I picked up the phone and called a friend.  “Are you watching the news?  Turn the TV on, NOW!”  

The next hour played out scene after scene of horrific events that unfolded, most of them unbelievable and hard to comprehend.  At 9:03 a.m., Charlie Gibson was getting only fragments of information fed to him through his earpiece. They resumed live coverage and Charlie Gibson began talking to an aviation expert who was reporting on the first plane’s impact on the North Tower.  While they were talking, the second plane (United Airlines Flight 175) hit the South Tower.  Peter Jennings was at the ABC News Nightly News desk and they quickly cut to him. Diane, Charlie and Peter Jennings began their mutual coverage on this historic event.  At 9:37 a.m., while Peter Jennings was on the air with Claire Shipman, he broke the news of American Airlines Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon. The news quickly became a frantic race to cover the events, the fall of the Twin Towers, and the chaos that ensued. I remember vividly how the kids and I froze as we watched Good Morning America’s broadcast. Peter Jennings broke down on the air and told us that if we had kids, now would be a good time to call them.  I hugged mine closely that morning.  Our nation would never be the same.

Firefighters work beneath the destroyed mullions, the vertical struts that once faced the outer walls of the World Trade Center towers, after a terrorist attack on the twin towers of lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. PHOTO: AP; Mark Lennihan

My husband was not home. He was on tour with Lord of the Dance’s second troupe as part of a resident show at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Mississippi. We were so thankful that he was back at work. You see, he had just recovered from a recurrence of Hodgkin’s Disease. Our family managed to make it through an unexpected tragedy that hit us out of the blue. We were finally on the other side. Oh yes, I knew what it felt like to experience sudden fear.

I remember calling my husband frantically, waking him up. After a few calls, he answered and I told him to turn on the TV. He and the cast from Troupe 2 of Lord of the Dance sat in their apartments and saw American history in the making. Shortly after that phone call, my sister, who lived in Arizona, called me. She too was frantic; my brother-in-law was on a return business flight from Europe scheduled to land in New York. He was on one of the planes forced to circle for hours while airports scrambled to find a way to land the incoming commercial planes amidst the chaos.

I cancelled school that day. I called all my friends, rallying those I knew to join me in prayer for the people of Manhattan, New York, Shanksville, and Washington, D.C. My heart was so burdened, feeling so much pain, so much sorrow. Oh, how the heart of God must have ached that day. The kids and I continued to watch, in dismay, the news coverage of that fateful day. My little girl’s coloring efforts had changed—bringing me a picture that she colored, her six-year-old handwriting recording the urgent need for prayer. Our church family gathered that evening for a prayer vigil. Our nation was reeling from utter grief and shock.

Twenty-two years have passed. September 11th is now a somber day in our history. But on that day, our nation rallied together like never before. There were no political lines, no bickering. We were a nation that had come under brutal attack. America’s people rose and faced the enemy like we have so many times in the past. May we always remember the price of freedom.

God bless the United States of America,
our armed forces,

The New York Fire Department and Port Authority,
the New York Police Department,
the people of Shanksville, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C.,
the people of New York City,
and the families whose lives will never be the same.

Today, we honor you.

PHOTO: Thomas E. Franklin, copyright The Record.