The Before & The After ~ Thoughts on CF and 9/11

Today I am reflecting on that most horrible of days 9 years ago. I remember every detail like it was yesterday. I was in my car driving on 90 West heading toward Toledo. I had a meeting at a hospital for work later that morning. Around 9am I got a call from my boyfriend, now my husband, saying that an airplane just crashed into the World Trade Center. Details were still sketchy. We thought it was just horrible that a plane crashed and it was into a major building. I had more than an hour left on my commute, so I listened to details on the radio. Soon, my husband called back to say that a second plane hit the other WTC tower and that a plane has been hijacked and is heading toward the White House. The visceral feeling that stirred in my gut was something I had never felt before. Now it was certain that the US was being attacked. I felt helpless. I felt unsafe. I felt panicked.

My husband, as a police officer, was called into work. He seemed to remain at work for days on end. Everyone was on high alert. They needed every force available. My father then called me during my commute. He had to work for days on end too. He worked for an airline and was dealing with stranded passengers for days. He was the one who told me about the path of the forth plane. The forth plane was known to be hijacked and made it to the Toledo, OH area, turned around and was heading back toward Cleveland. It was somewhere just overhead when my father called. He was concerned. This made me concerned. I couldn't see the plane, but I know that they were in contact with the Cleveland air traffic control when the plan crashed in Shanksville, PA. If it had crashed 15 minutes earlier it would have been in Cleveland. Only later did I start thinking about what was happening on that plane when it was right overhead. This would have been the time that the passengers were planning their attack on the hijackers. Some were already dead. People were desperately calling their loved one's to say their final goodbye's.

All of our the buildings in Cleveland were evacuated. Everyone was sent home. I was stuck in Toldeo. I finally arrived at the little community hospital in Toledo, OH. My first look at the destruction on TV was in a Cancer Center waiting room with many cancer patients waiting for their treatments. I was frightened and felt shaky. I went forward with my meeting, but cancelled the remainder of my meetings so I could get home. I needed to be home. I couldn't be in this city that was not my own, with people I did not know, at this scary time. When I arrived home I didn't feel any safer. I was no less confused. I was glued to the TV footage. I felt helpless.

Even today I automatically think of any event as being before 9/11 or after 9/11. If I am reminiscing with a friend and we talk about something that happened in 1995, my automatic first thought is that it happened before 9/11. If I see a picture from the year 2000, sometimes I examine the faces and think about how none of us knew what was to come, only a year in the future.

Often times tragedy creates a before and after situation...where things were one way before and they will never be the same after. It can happen in an instant. I think for many people the diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis is their moment in time that changes everything. I don't doubt that for quite some time my diagnosis was my mother and fathers moment in time. I was diagnosed at the age of 2. In my mind, I never had a before when it comes to CF. My CF has been my always. I sometimes think about if it would have been better to have been diagnosed in adulthood. Would the lack of knowledge about CF have made growing up easier. I'm not sure. I know that my life would probably look very different. I selected my career as a result of my personal experience. I may be something completely different than a Social Worker had I not had my earlier experiences. I had my children before the age of 30...there was somewhat of an urgency. Maybe if I hadn't known I would have taken my time and have totally different children now, or none at all. It's just interesting to think about...

So today I am thinking a lot about 9/11, the people who were lost, the fear we felt as a nation and all that has happened in these nine quite interesting years...