Just Another Bend In Journey of Life
Monday, September 11, 2006
Where were you?Where were you 5 years ago today? Can you remember? Can you remember where you were when you heard the news? What you were doing?
I can.
S and I had just recently moved back home and was living with my parents. I hadn't left VA or the airlines even a month prior. It was more like a couple of weeks. I can't remember if S had woken me up or if I got up on my own. She was 13 days shy of her first birthday. I crawled out of bed in the little blue room that was once my sisters, eyes still glazed over and full of sleep. My parents always left the TV on for the dog. The first thing I heard was the sheer horror, terror and panic in the voices on TV. I glanced at the TV and thought it was a made for TV movie or a reenactment on Court TV, to which my parents are devoted fans. I could not believe my eyes. It was just minutes after the first plane hit the WTC. Only 5 short years before that, I'd been there. Right there. In NYC, at the WTC as part of my Senior class trip. I remember coming out of the elevators of a building we were visiting and seeing blockades next to the WTC. We laughed because the guys from the NYPD were there and we just HAD to get our pictures taken with them. I knew my dad would appreciate it in the very least, him being a police officer and all. Besides, how many times in your life do you get to have your picture taken w/ the men in blue? Especially the NYPD blue?! So 4 of us girls all crowded around them and took our pictures with them. I can't remember what they said was going on. Some kind of protest if I remember right... I often wonder how many of them perished? I'd like to think that none of them did but my gut tells me otherwise.
I was glued to the TV that day and in the days following. I could not believe what was happening as I watched in horror of what I was seeing. My dad was at camp and had no idea what was going on. I don't know where my sister was as I don't think she was still living at home. My mom was working. I called her to see if they'd heard, knowing they didn't have a TV in the pharmacy. I think they had a radio on or someone went home and was getting a Tv. I can't really remember. I just remember talking to my mom and bawling uncontrollably. I don't really remember being a mom that day or even eating or functioning.
I do remember calling S's dad to make sure that they were ok but I couldn't get through. All of the lines were down. They live about 35 minutes from the Pentagon. I tried calling the 800 number to the airline trying to get through to him that way and I couldn't. Even that number was down. I remember praying that none of my co-workers were on those flights. Our airline was based out of Dulles and flew up and down the east coast as well as into the Midwest. Many of the people that I worked with commuted to various cities throughout the US. Many of them left our commuter airline to join the majors. Especially the pilots.
I remember the phone ringing throughout the day. I remember hearing the voices of my friends back home telling me how happy they were that I was here. Safe. I remember talking to my Grandma, I think it was that day. As soon as she heard my voice she cried. She didn't know if I'd made another trip back to VA or if I was at home and she was too afraid to call and find out. I have never felt so loved and appreciated as I did that day. I don't know if I will ever feel that way again in my life.
I started my new job the following day. It was for a sales position at a radio station about 35 minutes from my parents house in a neighboring town. The man who hired me knew I'd just left the airlines. I remember sitting in his office that first day and not being able to function and still crying because I didn't know if any of my friends or co-workers were on those flights. I can remember sitting in his office on the top floor of the station watching the news. I don't remember anything else from that day.
Thankfully, no one that I know of was on those flights. None of my close friends anyway. Once they released the flight logs I was glued to the internet searching through all of the names.
In January of my Senior year a few friends and I went to Acapulco. One of my friends parents had a condo there and let their kids take 2 friends each. Being typical teenage girls we scoured the beaches and clubs for cute guys to pass our time and make our vacation more fun. We ran into a couple of men from NY. I believe they worked for the NYPD also. Marco and Angelo. I do not remember their last names although my friend does. I know I have their names on the back of the picture we took with them. They're packed away in a box along with all of my pictures from NY. I remember looking for them on the rosters too but there were so many names of those that perished in NY it was nearly impossible.
Today was difficult for me. It filled me full of emotion and sadness. It brings me back to where I was 5 years ago today. All of the life changes that were ahead of me. Still, there is not a day that goes by that I don't miss working for the airlines. I have wondered that had I gotten hired at United when I'd applied all those years ago, if that would have been my destiny? Obviously it was not in God's plan for me.
Once aviation is in your blood it is so hard to get it out. I miss flying. I miss being around the airplanes, the stuffy uniforms (I still have the uniforms and my wings, I will keep them until the day that I die). The flight Attendants and pilots that I'd made such good friends with. The hustle and bustle of the airports. The people watching when I had a layover. Helping those people get on the planes that were scared to death of flying. Trying to tell a plane full of Japanese passengers that they cannot sit in the exit row because they didn't understand English and would not be able to understand my commands in case there was an emergency and we needed to get people out of the airplane ASAP. The pissed off people that had to be somewhere NOW and we were stranded somewhere because of weather conditions or mechanical delays. People don't understand that. They're horrified when a plane crashes due to weather conditions or something that mechanically malfunctioned but are beyond pissed off when they can't get from point A to point B when they're supposed to. Hey, better to be safe than sorry isn't it? I remember the day that I thought I was going to die flying from Traverse City to rinky dink Pellston airport during a snowstorm and the two grown men that were white as ghosts in the back of the plane. Seriously, I saw *everyone* I've ever come into contact with that day. They flashed before me in a matter of 5 seconds. I remember sitting against the cockpit wall in my jumpseat, buckled in and in my brace position, because the pilots had told me to be prepared for landing. All of a sudden I heard "woot woot! Pull up! Terrain! Woot woot! Pull up! Terrain!" That's when it flashed. The plane went straight up into the sky. I thought that was it. It obviously wasn't. I remember the pilots calling me one time telling me over the phone to come into the cockpit but not to open the door real wide, I asked why and they just repeated themselves. I was scared. I knew we were flying around thunderstorms galore and figured it was bad news. When I squeezed through the cockpit door I was in amazement. You know those little static balls that glow? (I always think of the movie Weird Science for some reason). The windshield of the cockpit as well as the nose of the airplane was full of little static electricity lines. Pink, purple, green... It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. I was in pure and udder amazement. All around the airplane, while we were flying in clear skies, you could see clouds full of lightening bolts. I think it's so beautiful. When I left the cockpit I went back into the cabin and there were little electricity lines along the wings of the airplane. Luckily I don't think any of the passengers noticed as I'm sure some of them would have freshet. I remember the day we got hit by lightening in air and the burst of light that came in the crack of the door through the cabin. I had to remain calm as I really wasn't sure at that time what it was. The passengers were scared. I remember telling them if it was anything to worry about the pilots would call me. The very first flight I had by myself after my IOE and checkride with the first airline that I worked for was in a little puddle jumper. We made stops in IA, SD and then off to Denver. I'd never been out west before. It was clear as a bell in the night sky and there was an eclipse. It was extraordinary being able to see it happen mid air. The passengers and I were glued to the windows. I think I stayed in DEN that night but I can't remember. I know I didn't get to see much as it was dark and foggy when we landed and we left very early in the morning. That was the one and only time I've been to that airport. I remember all the fun places we'd get to go to on our layover and the people from the outstations, hotels and restaurants that we'd become friends with. The little shops in Savannah by the river and the Irish Pub that would always feed us when we'd get in late at night. I learned that in the south you have to ask for a BLT TOASTED or it comes to you on bread. The south is also famous for their "sweet tea". Bugs in the south are bigger too. Cockroaches are bigger than butterflies and when stepped on they crunch louder than really crispy potato chips. I remember flying into Wilmington, NC for the first time. We took a cab or the hotel van to the beach and I could not figure out for the life of me why the houses were on stilts! :) (Hey I'm from the Midwest!) Flying into Charleston, WV during the cicada hatching. OMG talk about gross! We could hear them "ping" against the side of the airplane while coming in. It was GROSS. Worse than the cockroaches in Savannah. Those little bastards would make their way into the airplane and I had to open and close the door at least 3-4 times to shoo them out before I'd let them leave the tarmac. We stayed there one night during the hatching phase and were waiting for the hotel van and a passenger telling us that he'd been waiting for 7 years for them to hatch because they were good to eat. BARF! He was serious too! One of those "lets melt some butter and garlic and fry them up" types. Wrong, just wrong. All of the fun nights the pilots and I had in Chicago. The night that we were out with another FA and some pilots and I decided that we should show some T&A for free shots. Every shot we did was Louis I,II, III etc... We got to about Louis the 15th. I was sick. In fact I was still drunk when I woke up at 2pm the next day. S's dad and I were dating at the time and I had to pick him and his son up at the airport that night. Have I ever told you that he proposed to me at the TravelLodge in Chicago? I knew he had the ring because I picked it out. It was beautiful. I knew he had it with him. (This was not the night I was hung over by the way.) We'd gone out to the local hangout that night and went back to the hotel. He still refused to give it to me so I went to bed. He woke me up around 1230am and asked me to marry him. My response? "Fuck you". I thought he was kidding. I'd waited and waited and he wouldn't give it to me. Couldn't take me out to dinner or do something romantic. Let's wake her up in the middle of the night by sitting on the floor on the side of the bed and ask her to marry me. Uh ya, that's what I always pictured in my head it would be like. He gave me the ring, I accepted and then said "we dont' have to do it do we?", rolled over and went back to bed. That was January 8, 2000. S was conceived the following day after we flew back to VA.... So many memories of my days at the airlines. Each and every one cherished in a differnet way. My own little way. But none of them will ever be forgotten. I often look up into the sky and wonder what would have been. But I wouldn't change a thing for my daughter is my life. She's the reason that I wake up in the morning and live my life the best I can on a daily basis. I'd put up with all of the bullshit of her father again just to have her. For she is the light of my life.
09/11 brings back so many memories for me. Mostly sadness. But I will always remember how loved I felt that day.
