Another day to remember

Today is Sep 11. A day to remember what happened ten years ago.

I was away from my family on Sep 11, 2001. Graduating from the business school and reporting to work in that fall, I was excited about the bright career in the future.  The consulting company flied me and all their MBA new hires from all offices to Dallas, TX for the orientation week starting Sep 11. I left on the Sunday Sep 10. Monday, Sep 11, at breakfast, I got some words that there was an accident in NYC. I did not pay much attention.  It was only 30 mins into the meeting schedule when the large screen TV in the meeting room was tured to CNN, showing a smoking building. Very soon, we all gasped when the picture showed the 2nd plane went into the twin towers. America was under attack.

I did not remember seeing people jumping out of windows from the buring building. Nor did I know all the details or grasp what was really happening during that morning. It was just happening so fast.  When I saw the towers went down like toy models in front of my eyes, it was so disturbing. I knew many lives were gone. Totally shocked and confused, we did not know what else could be coming our way. Maybe that was the beginning of hell for US, where no war touched its soil directly over hundred years. No more trainings or motivations speeches. Life appeared so fragile and there were just so many important things other than work or job. All colleagues wanted to go home and to be with their loved ones if we were all doomed. There were no planes flying any more. From the Boston office, there were about 14 of us. We requested to chater a bus after two days of anxiously waiting at the hotel, watching TV.  Our home office agreed. We left Wed morning and arrived home Thursday.  I did not know how much the bus costed to the company - our managing director at Boston office jokely said later that he never allowed employees to spend so much before they were even making a dime for the company. I was so glad to see my husband and daughter after sleeping and eating at the bus a day and night. Hugging my little one was so precious.

I actually felt lucky that my daughter was too young to truly live through the event 10 years ago. For me, while I read all the stories, there were not that much angries but deep sorrows. Tears were always in my eyes when I got all details of many people's acts, feelings and emotions at the time and after. A Chinese American rushed to the site to help others but lost his life when the tower collaped; a young working mom wondering how she would manage to work while she no longer had a husband who could take turns to look after their small children and her pay alone was too low to hire a nanny; people who were on the PA plane knowing their fate and making a call to fight the terriosts; people working in the 2nd building who might have a chance to leave the building after the first building was hit but thought that there was only an accident; people who walked 4-5 hours to go back their NJ homes from the city; people never knowing what really happened to their loved ones but just "missing". I felt for all of them one way or another. Life could be so fair and unfair. Power beyond our control decided who live and who die.

10 years later, a Sep 11 aniversary falls on the day of Chinese moon festival, a holiday for the Chineses to get together with their families or to miss their loved ones when they are away. I thank god that I am with my family now and happy.  9/11 had negatively impacted my career but it impacts me in a more postive way in general. It reminds me that I live for the ones I love and those who love me. I always check myself now: If I would not live tomorrow, had I said enough "love you" and done enough hugging to people who are most important to me? Do I appreciate what I still have and not cry over for things I just lost? No matter what it did to this country, 9/11 is the day reminding me what is important in my life.