SF,
I am so very sorry for your loss. Sending you positive and healing vibes. Love and light. You are definitely going through it and it royally sucks. I am sorry you were denied the opportunity to have a future with her. I hope you find something good in your life. I hope you find some joy and happiness. Obviously nothing can replace what was lost, but I hope you find some good along the way. Peace brother.
SF I am moved by your sharing with us, I have just been an observer and have not been integral to such a historic personal experience. I am at loss for words, wish I could hug.
I appreciate it, today is actually the first time I went to work on 9/11 since that day.
I think the worst part was not knowing. Did she make it out? Is she in a hospital unconscious? Maybe she is in a coma. You cling to hope because it’s all you have.
So after that I moved to Germany and took a job with Adidas. It was March 11, 2004 and I was on a business trip to Madrid with some colleagues to watch Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich. The next morning I awoke to explosions. Terrorists had blown up 7 trains in Madrid, including one we were supposed to be on. But after the game the night before I went out drinking with the Spanish colleagues to celebrate Real Madrid’s victory and postponed our meeting by an hour. It was 2 blocks from our hotel, looked like a war zone. Went down to help as they didn’t have enough EMT’s or people to help get people out of the wreckage ... the carnage was beyond a warzone, body parts and dead strewn all over. Felt like Deja Vu.
3 months later I quit and left my cosmopolitan lifestyle, moved away from society and lived in the mountains of Oregon for the next 5 years while putting myself back together. Clearly I am still a work in progress.
@SFVikeFan - Thank you so much for sharing that. It takes courage to do so, even if we are 'strangers' behind computer screens. I hope you feel the support of our lil' purple dysfunctional group here.
Having said that, it's hard to imagine what you and so many others directly impacted experienced. As much as the rest of us witnessed, I appreciate that there is a difference.
Even if it only helps a little to unload and share, I'm glad there was a space here to do so.
Holy shit, SF. I'm sitting here literally in tears. I can't even imagine....
I hope you eventually find peace. I'm no shrink, but I think it's good for you to share it like you just did. Makes me think a book or a magazine article might be a good idea. Not for a buck, but for your own personal catharsis.
I appreciate the comments and support.
This is just my own private, anonymous way of uncorking the emotions that bubble up when you can’t escape this date. Nobody in America will forget 9/11, whether it had a direct impact on your life’s course or not, all of our lives changed that day.
You know the worst part of 9/11? That was the last time I felt our country was unified. The whole world grieved with us, for us. And then we took that global empathy and love for each other and pissed it away over the next 20 years.
Quote: @"SFVikeFan" said:
Saddest day of my life.
Awoke at 6 am in my apartment in San Francisco. A friend from Germany is on the line telling me to turn on the TV to see the plane accident in NYC. I thought a Cessna got lost in the clouds. I watched on live TV when the 2nd plane hit. Told Anja I have to go.
My girlfriend worked in the South Tower of WTC. She was relocating to SF in 6 weeks to move in with me. It was a sticky situation as she was engaged to some ahole in Manhattan and had broke it off with him after she and I had met. I’m frantically calling her cell number but can’t get through. Her office number is at my desk at work.
I dress in 30 secs, jump on cable car. Everyone on their phones, everyone in tears. I get into my office, 19th floor across from TransAmerica pyramid. I call her work landline from our office land line. Busy signal, won’t go through. My co-worker Michael and I are watching the TV. People are starting to jump from the WTC to escape the fire. I oray I don’t see her blond hair leaping out of a window. Michael gets a call, it’s his best friend in Oakland Paul. Paul is hysterical. His boyfriend’s plane is hijacked en route back to SF. I just had dinner with my girlfriend along with Michael and Paul and Paul’s partner Mark 2 weeks ago.
Police arrive at our office. We are being evacuated. Flight 93 that was SF bound with Mark has just crashed. TransAmerica pyramid could be next terrorist target and they are emptying the entire Financial District. Cell phones aren’t working, the network crashed. Michael and I go to a bar/cafe in the Mission District nearby to watch the news. We watched the South Tower fall. I remember all the oxygen being sucked out of the room, dizzy, I think I fainted. I knew in that moment she was gone. Her remains were never recovered, lost under all that rubble.
We find out later that Mark and some others rushed the cockpit and brought the plane down in PA. I won’t watch any of the movies or shit about Flight 93 as I felt I lived through it in realtime as Michael relayed info from poor Paul as he was getting calls from Mark’s mom. I went to Manhattan once since 9/11 and I doubt I’ll return. I knew she was the one, that I would marry that girl and want kids with her. I have since never married, never had kids. When you land a 10 it’s hard to settle for 7s and 8s.
I really don’t talk about it, tho unlike social media I can vent here anonymously without friends and family reading about it. And there are thousands of others out there who lost loved ones so I don’t feel like my experience is any more or less tragic than theirs. It was a horrible day for many.
Wow, thanks for sharing. That is a harrowing tale, my friend. I hope you continue to work toward some mental peace. I'm sure its a process.
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