September 11, 2001 – a day anyone who was alive on that day will never forget.
I don’t want to minimise what happened that day for the many thousands of people who died or had their lives ripped apart, but events of that day had a major effect on me.
I just didn’t know it at the time.
In Australia, the events of 9/11 happened during the late evening, just before 11pm. I was in the habit of watching the late news on television – (usually around 10:30pm on the main channels) – and then going to bed.
On this night, I had fallen asleep on the couch, and slept through till around 11:15pm, by which time both planes had already struck the twin towers in New York.
Whatever channel I was watching hadn’t started their late news yet, so I flicked over hoping to catch some on one of the other channels. Where I was confronted by the tragic events of that day.
Stunning. Indescribable.
I had actually been home sick from work that day, and still wasn’t feeling very well and was planning to take the following day off work as well. As such, sitting up and watching this once in a lifetime “event” wasn’t going to upset any work plans for the next day.
I just sat and watched for two or three hours. I saw the towers fall, and the flames at the Pentagon.
Then my head did something really weird.
“Gee, I hope Maddie is okay,” I thought to myself.
Wait, what?
Why had that come to my mind? Why had Maddie popped in there? It had been nearly seven years since I had seen or heard from her.
More than a year later, I would get my answer.