This was September 11, 2001 for my family. My sister died two months prior and my dad was active military. Living on the west coast, the attack was very early for us and I’m not sure what got my mom to wake me up but she did and in a very weird way I’m thankful for it. I rather have known what happened than hear it afterwards. Being a child, it was a very surreal day. I thought I understood death and its magnitude after my sister died but I couldn’t comprehend this kind of scale.
I know we make light of it the event on the internet (I’m totally guilty of that too)… However I’ve been seeing videos of personal recounts of people there in the moment and it’s made me check myself. My families life changed fundamentally but it pales in comparison to so many others.
There’s a certain account that animates personal stories (that I believe are largely NY/east coast based) called Story Corps. Every single post has made me cry.
For all those whose lives were changed through this tragedy, I’m so sorry.
🫂 omg your sister. I am so sorry for you and especially your parents that is the most awful thing to ever happen.
I was also woken up when my friend called me I was unemployed and sleeping in. I went over to my friends house in my pajamas watching as events unfolded. I am grateful my friend called because I likely would have slept through a bulk of it and not found out until my job interview later that day was canceled. Job hunting got extremely difficult for the next few months.
I was working overnights at the time and went to bed probably an hour or two before the first plane hit. I woke up ~8 hours later to a changed world. It was surreal.
Oh shit no doubt! The before and after was wild. It was the first time I truly struggled to find a software development job. We had been in such high demand for all the Y2K work happening that in 95+ i had no issues, even without a college degree. After 9/11 though everyone went on hiring freezes.
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u/reddot_comic Finessed Impropriety 15h ago edited 14h ago
This was September 11, 2001 for my family. My sister died two months prior and my dad was active military. Living on the west coast, the attack was very early for us and I’m not sure what got my mom to wake me up but she did and in a very weird way I’m thankful for it. I rather have known what happened than hear it afterwards. Being a child, it was a very surreal day. I thought I understood death and its magnitude after my sister died but I couldn’t comprehend this kind of scale.
I know we make light of it the event on the internet (I’m totally guilty of that too)… However I’ve been seeing videos of personal recounts of people there in the moment and it’s made me check myself. My families life changed fundamentally but it pales in comparison to so many others.
There’s a certain account that animates personal stories (that I believe are largely NY/east coast based) called Story Corps. Every single post has made me cry.
For all those whose lives were changed through this tragedy, I’m so sorry.