Never Forget

Like Dinah, I also was thinking of writing something. I went to Twitter, and saw that many people were saying what they were doing at the time of hearing about the attacks. It made me think -- for the umpteenth time -- where I was and what I was doing at that time.

If any of you readers would like to describe what you were doing on 9/11/2001, the day of the terrorist attacks, please feel free to do so in the comments.

I was in my private practice office at GBMC seeing my first patient of the day. A very healthy, but very anxious older man with frequent physical complaints. Very nice guy. We were just finishing a therapy session (~8:50am) and I sent him out and was writing my note. My office was in a hospital office building in a suite run by a primary care physician, so there were also several exam rooms, a large front office with a receptionist and two office staff, and a waiting room with maybe a dozen chairs.

The first plane hit at 8:46 am ET (detailed timeline here on Wikipedia).

My 9am patient, a middle-aged woman with even more anxiety problems whom I had helped with a severe benzo addiction, came back early to tell me that a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers in NY and that another one was heading to DC. My initial reaction was disbelief. She must have gotten that wrong. I go out to the front office where everyone is crowded around a TV, listening to the news. My 8am patient is still there.

She was my last patient of the day. Everyone else cancelled. If they hadn't, I would have. The day was filled with fear, uncertainty, and doubt. But there was a camaraderie. We all grew closer with this common experience. The images, burned into our collective brains.

The one peaceful image that equally burned into my brain: for four days I gazed for long periods at the sky in amazed wonder. Not a single plane. Not a single jet entrail drifting across the sky. "This must be what the sky looks like in Wyoming," I recall thinking. Beautiful! I'm tearing up just thinking about it now. I've still never made it to Wyoming. But I will never forget.