The Attack

It was a regular day in New York city. I was getting ready for work as usual. The daily routine usually consisted of making my coffee, watching the morning news, getting all dolled up for work and waking my beautiful girls for school. Well I started to make my coffee and went to go get dressed and went to go get dressed as it warmed up. I walked to my bedroom and slipped on a pencil skirt and a frilly blouse. I slid on my favorite pair of black high heels. I clicked my way to the bathroom to do my makeup. The eyeliner slid across my eyelids smoothly as I heard the timer for the coffee go off. I finished getting ready then grabbed my coffee and flipped on the T.V.

“And the daily weather is in the high of 60 degrees, low of 58 degrees. It will be sunny with little clouds today.”

A normal September day; nice weather, everything was going regularly. It was about 7’o clock now and it was time to wake the girls. I walked down the hallway trying not to make too much noise. There was this one squeaky spot that I always stepped on. I always stepped on it no matter how hard I tried. The loudest screech rippled from the floor. I paused just to see if the girls had heard. I heard them jump out of bed and run around. They were always so hyper. There was Mia, the oldest of the two. She was in third grade and loved everything about the world. Her luscious brown locks curled down to her shoulders. She was almost never sad. My second daughter Ella fallowed in her footsteps. She was very happy but worried a lot of the time. She had the curls of her sister except blonde. They were long, down to her lower back. She was only in preschool and next year she was going to be in kindergarten. A loud screech broke my flash back of when they were younger. My motherly instincts took over from there. I ran into their room screaming
“ What happened?!”

“ Nothing Mom. Ella just fell of the bed.” Mia explained.

“What were you doing on the bed Ella?” “I was just jumping for fun.” “ Well next time be more careful please.”

“ Ok. I will Mama.” Ella said innocently.

“ Get dressed and ready for school, then I will make you pancakes for breakfast.”

“Yay!” they said together. I went back into the kitchen to get my now, very warm coffee. I sipped it while I thought about work. I worked a couple blocks down from where my husband worked. He worked for the C.O.S in the world trade center twin towers. I worked for a magazine publishing business. I finished drinking my coffee and made the girls some pancakes. They ate them up so fast it was as if the pancakes never existed. My husband, Chris walked out of our bedroom yawning and stretching. “ Hey Hun.” he said pouring himself some orange juice.
“ Good morning.” I said and kissed him on the cheek.

“ Morning Daddy!” Ella ran up and gave him a hug. He wrapped his muscular arms around her tiny body. Mia then ran up as well and they group hugged.

“ Ok you guys, you need to get to school.” He said putting them down.

“Aww.” They said simultaneously.

“ I will see you later. Don’t worry.” He said realizing how upset Ella was getting.

Ella being the worry wart that she was said “ Come home safe Daddy.”

“ Ok I promise. Love you. Have fun at school.” He said and kissed them goodbye.

“ We will Dad. Love you too.” Mia said. While the girls packed their bags for school I kissed Chris one last time.

“ I love you.”

“ I love you more.” And I left to take the girls to school. After I dropped Ella off at preschool and Mia at the elementary school, I was headed to work. I parked our small car in the lot and walked towards the building. I sat down in my chair ready to get to work. Then I heard the ring of my cell phone when there was a text. I scrambled around in my purse to find my blackberry. The text was from Chris. It read :” @ 8:30 walk to my work office. I have a break. We can go do something. Luv u. <3” I smiled knowing that he wanted to spend his break with me. Time passed and I looked at the clock. It was about 8:30. I packed up my things and grabbed my purse. When I was half way there I called him. Rringg. Rringg. Rrinng.

“Hello, this is Chris speaking.”

“ Hey sweetie, it’s me Melanie. I think we should go out for breakfast.” I looked down at my watch. It was 8:45 and I could now see the twin towers. All of a sudden I saw a plane go towards the first tower. It came out of nowhere. I heard crackling and a huge explosion. The plane crashed into the north tower at 8:46 pm. I was panicking now. “Are you ok Chris? I just saw a plane crash into one of the twin towers. Are you hurt?”

“Mel, I’m fine. That was the other tower. I’m perfectly fine.”

“ Ok, ok. They won’t let me in your building now. I will just wait until 9 and then everything should be normal again.”

“Yeah. I will call you then.” How could this happen? What was going on? It must have just been an accident. Why else would this happen? I kept thinking about how many people must be dead now. It was scaring me. I didn’t know what to do. I just went for a walk down the street. When I got back it was about 9 so I called Chris.

“Hey Chris, are you still ok?”

“ Yes. I’m fine.”

“Ok where do you want to eat?”

“ Do you hear that?”

“ Yes. It’s some sort of screeching noise.”

“ Honey, I lov….” The phone line went dead. As I was looking at the floor where he worked another plane crashed into the south tower. A giant explosion roared from the south twin tower. It had hit Chris. The tears started to roll down my face; the salt water stinging my lips. I saw the explosion that killed my husband. This was no accident. This was an act of terrorism. The second plane had hit the building at 9:03 am when Chris and I were talking. The plane had hit between the 77th and 85th floors. Chris had been on the 83rd floor. I was in complete shock. Everything had started out so normally. I just couldn’t believe that my husband was dead. I started running towards his building. All of a sudden I heard something falling and then a sharp pain on my legs. Everything went black. When I woke up I was in the hospital. A piece of the building had fallen on my legs leaving them paralyzed. My two daughters were standing by my bed sobbing. It was hard to believe that earlier that day everything was normal.

“Mia. Ella. Dad is dead.” The sobbing continued. The tears gushed out of my eyes as well. How could something so horrible have happened to our family? Everything had happened so fast. It was as if none of it was even real. I now had to raise two little girls as a single mother. This was the start of a brand new life. Many people had died in this tragic event and Chris was one of them. This was a wakeup call to America. We were now aware of what could happen when we were not careful. I will never forget the day that our family was broken. September, 11, 2001 my husband was killed at 9:03am by a flight that crashed his building. This was the day no one would ever forget. This day would be in history forever. This day is called 9/11.