Tuesday Morning

Tuesday Morning
Written by Melissa Etheridge & Jonathan Taylor

Up and down this road I go
Skippin’ and dodgin’
From a 44

10:03 on a Tuesday morning
In the fall of an American dream
A man is doing what he knows is right
On flight 93
He loved his mom and he loved his dad
He loved his home and he loved his man
But on that bloody Tuesday morning
He died an American

Now you cannot change this
You can’t erase this
You can’t pretend this is not the truth

Even though he could not marry
Or teach your children in our schools
Because of who he wants to love
Is breaking your God’s rules
He stood up on a Tuesday morning
In the terror he was brave
And he made his choice
And without a doubt
A hundred lives he must have saved

Now you cannot change this
You can’t erase this
You can’t pretend this is not the truth

And the things you might take for granted
Your inalienable rights
Some might choose to deny him
Even though he gave his life
Can you live with yourself in the land of the free
And make him less of a hero than the other three
Well it might begin to change ya
In a field in Pennsylvania

Now you cannot change this
You can’t erase this
You can’t pretend this is not the truth

Stand up America
Hear the bell now as it tolls
Wake up America
It’s Tuesday morning
Come on let’s roll

As an American, 9/11 impacted my life in ways I did not realize right away. I think all Americans (as well as much of the world) were affected by the events of that day and the events to come. In fifty years, I know Americans will still be talking about how they heard about the events of that day. I know I do not have the best story about that day. I did not know anyone personally in the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. I did not know anyone personally on any of the four planes. I did not even know about the events until more information had come in. I am still going to share what I experienced that day in efforts to show how the information affected me and what I observed in other people.

In 2001, I was already working nights and living the scheduled I currently keep. I sleep later than "normal" people do and I am also a person who has never been a fan of television. I had not turned on a TV or listened to a radio that morning. Even if I had gotten up early that day, the chances of tuning into the news would have been few.

As I slept, my phone started ringing. Timeframe wise, this is right after the second plane hit the Twin Towers. I figured someone just wanted to call me and didn’t realize I was sleeping. I did not get up. The phone rang a second time. Still, I stayed in bed. My message alert went off a few moments later and I decided to listen to the message when I was ready to get up.

About two hours later, my phone started ringing again. My alarm clock was not set to go off for another hour and a half. Again, I stayed in bed. The caller tried a second time. I had the semi-conscious thought, ‘If this person wants to talk to me this badly, they’ll call a third time. Then I’ll figure it’s important enough to get up.’

Sure enough, the phone rang a third time in a row. I stood up and wandered over to where I had my cell phone plugged into the wall.
I check the caller ID and saw it was Adam (side note for those who don’t know, Adam is one of my best friends and the person I shared an apartment with for two years).

"Hello?" I said as I rubbed my tired eyes.

"Would you just turn on a TV already!" Adam doesn’t normally dictate what I should do. Also, he knows I don’t normally function at this time of day.

I find a TV in the house and Adam fills me in on his morning. He had dropped his cousin off at the airport a few minutes before the first plane hit and got just away from the airport when she called to have him come back to pick her up. He told me to check in with work to see if I should go in (we worked in a downtown location in close proximity of another World Trade Center). He was going to work at our other location for the day (the beauty of call centers – the work can travel).

After Adam hung up, I sat staring at the TV. I couldn’t believe it. Denial is the first stage of dealing with grief. I watched for the first time as a plane crashed into the Twin Towers. The video footage kept replaying. TV anchors were sharing all facts coming out. Two planes have flown into the World Trade Center Twin Towers. A plane has crashed into the Pentagon. Wreckage has been found of another plane in a field in Pennsylvania. Airports have cancelled all flights. The first Tower has collapsed. The second Tower is about to collapse.

Through all this, I sat there, my eyes wide, my mouth hanging open. When my senses had enough, I turned off the TV. I called up my voicemail to listen to Adam’s message. I do not have an exact transcript but this is close:

"I dropped my cousin off at the airport and I’m now on my way back. Airplanes have flown into the Twin Towers and there are car bombs going off all over the place. People are panicking and everyone’s scared. Call me as soon as you get this."

Remember that Adam left this message right after the second plane hit. The news reports were trying to alert America to what had happened without knowing completely what was happening. The first hours were full of horror and fear. By the time I spoke with Adam, the news was reporting only the planes (because as far as I know, there were no car bombs that day) and the news was getting closer to accurate. People were starting to realize this was a terrorist act and not just a misguided plane. I mentioned that denial is the first stage of grief. I remember thinking, as I first sat down to watch the footage, "It’s not terrorism. Maybe one plane just went the wrong way." That’s how unbelievable this event was to me.

Because I did not hear the news of 9/11 the same time as most Americans, I was spared the hours of worrying if the entire country was under attack. I listened to Adam’s message trying to understand the other facts he stated and trying to figure out why the news wasn’t mentioning them. It was then that I realized the not knowing what was going on is harder than knowing what was going on. Panic struck the country and no one knew the entire story.

I called my manager at work and was told I didn’t need to come in that day. There were a lot of people coming in to the other center and since I had no idea how to get there, I could spend the day watching the news. I called Keem to see if she was going to work. She was also told to not come in that day. To deal with the tragedy, Keem and I agreed to meet for lunch. I learned that day that times of turmoil are the times when people truly need each other. I could sit by myself and watch the news, confused, angry, lost, but by sitting with Keem, I could watch the news, still confused, angry, but not as lost. We could talk about the events. We tried to understand them together. We did sit together at a local restaurant, watching the footage again and again on the big screen TVs. The atmosphere of a commonly jovial place was muted. People held quiet conversations, dealing with the news in their own ways. I saw few smiles on people that day.

The second stage of grief is bargaining. I don’t remember going through this stage. It may have been because there were no bargaining chips. If I could have found a way to take back the events of that Tuesday morning, I’m sure I would have done it. I’m sure most Americans would have.

I remember the anger starting to slide in. As Keem and I were talking, our discussion kept moving from the tragic loss of life, the fear we were feeling, and trying to see what the retaliation would be. How would our leaders respond to this awful event? We knew America wouldn’t just sit back and let this happen. The question was who was the enemy? We know now that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda planned the attacks and executed them. We didn’t KNOW that during that first day.
The desire for more information became intense. We watched the news, we bought the newspapers coming out (special editions, headlines screaming: TERROR), and talked to everyone possible. Did someone else hear a fact we didn’t know yet?

Keem and I hung out until Adam got off of work. We met up with him and his cousin. At this point, our senses were overloaded and we wanted to get away from television. It was almost, "Enough already! We can’t take anymore bad news." We sat together and talked. We all had moments of despair, the fourth stage of grief. Tears welled up in our eyes, I know I had moments by myself in the bathroom, wiping tears from my face. The questions still raced through my head. ‘Why would someone do this? How could someone do this? What causes a person or group of people to hate this much? How did this happen? What are those poor families going through?’

Acceptance is the final stage of grief. I hope the families of the victims have found their acceptance with the loss of their loved ones. I don’t think America can ever just accept what happened. We can deal with it, we have troops overseas, and we have alert systems in place. The country is more aware of what could happen. The feeling/thought, "This would never happen here," has been replaced with, "Let’s make sure this never happens here again." I think acceptance comes to dealing with the loss of individual lives. Acceptance is found in many forms. We don’t accept that acts were justified, we do accept the decision to live, learn, and move forward.

There are two reasons I chose to share this Melissa Etheridge song today. The first is simple. The song talks about the events of 9/11. The day was a tragic day in American history. Americans realized this day that this country is not immune to terror. In the aftermath, I’ve seen people afraid of terror, but also stronger. The strength comes from overcoming the unknown, from finding the good in the bad, from learning how to live. The day awakened the country and brought a nation together.

The second reason I chose to share this song is one I will be writing about later this week. I am delaying the rest of this post due to the length. I do promise to discuss the other theme of the song later this week.

3 Comments:

At 11:49 AM, The Lioness said...

Not "much of the world". The whole world. I walked into my parents house in time to see the second plane hit the Tower live. There are no words. The number of victims and the terrible brilliancy behind it makes it more poignant. The fact that it happened in the US was even more dramatic because the US had acted until then as though they were an untouchable nation. In Europe we pay attention to what is happening in America and the rest of the world. America didn't, not really. I don't think it felt it needed to, being so self-contained and powerful. (I don't mean to be insulting at all. I've long felt we should all get to vote for presidential elections because it does affect us all.) And it is ironic in the most horrendous way that the same people it had helped arm and train turned against it but that's the price to pay in politics, I suppose. There is no evil involved in the sense that it is all people, people with agendas, disturbed, at times geniously so. I lived in Israel for years. I lived in fear for years but in a way that is almost subliminal. You check objects, people and actions automatically. You may choose to avoid certain places on Shabbat (or not. Many don't). It is no big deal to be in a club with a soldier on leave in civilian clothes and a machine gun on his back, or have lunch on the kibbutz with a pistol on the table. You learn the words for "bomb", "bomb attack" and "suspicious objects" before you learn the colours. You are recently traumatised. In Europe, we've had to deal with IRA and ETA for decades. It will eventually reach every single country, I'm sure. There's a before and this after. We are all changed and this is the new world children will know. But you get used to it. And that is, I think, the saddest part.

At 9:01 AM, CarpeDM said...

I remember this day clearly. I stopped at Walgreen's before work to fill a prescription and overhead a conversation between the pharmacist and a customer. Some word caught my attention and I asked what they were talking about. I was told me a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center.

At that point, it was thought to be an accident. When I got to work, it was a different world than usual. A television had been set up. In the few minutes it took me to get to work, another plane had crashed. The word terrorism was mentioned.

We watched the news coverage, we prayed, we cried, we tried to answer calls. The decision was made to close the phone bank and move to the other location. The place emptied out quickly. I said I would go to the other location with Mike, my manager. The managers had a hurried meeting and I answered the phones to the help desk to say that our location was closed.

It's funny I remember this because it's so trivial but I remember playing Alchemy while I was waiting for Mike and Ed, the new center manager, walked by. I was waiting for a comment about playing games on the internet but he just smiled and thanked me for staying. I found out later that it was his birthday.

It was an awful day, awful weeks that followed. A friend of mine told me about her brother-in-law, an officer at the Penthouse, was supposed to be working that day. Instead he was on a father-son event in another state. His office was one of the ones destroyed. Thank God. It got to the point that I couldn't turn on the television without bursting into tears.

I love this song and I'm glad you introduced me to it. We should always be aware that this could happen again. And we should never forget the people who died. One of the best lines in Love Actually is when Hugh Grant talks about all the calls that were made from the planes on 9/11, when people knew what was happening, that the calls were all about love.

So yes, this can happen again, we are not the impervious nation we once thought we were, but we should never forget to love one another. That's important as well. Thanks for your post, Beth.

At 9:20 PM, angelia said...

I remember the grief as well. It was my first year as an interpreter in an elementary school. I left the kids outside for gym, and ran into the school for some water. Bob, another 6th grade teacher came running down the hall and told me that we were under attack and one of the twin towers was hit. I didn't believe him. I didn't understand why he would play such a cruel joke on me. It was hard to take the news, but I was there to relay information. It was hard to explain to a group of 6th graders what happend and what was happening as we watched the news. I remember Amber, the home room teacher crying in front of the class, and I remember praying to God that I could interpret the information without showing my own emotion so that I could be professional. It was hard. I think everyone will remember what they were doing on that day, who they were with, where they were, and how they felt. The pain is still there, and I think that it will always be.