Share Your Memories of 9/11

We all seem to have incredibly vivid memories of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. These are mine:

I was four months pregnant and still pretty nauseauted. It was our kids' second week at new schools since we'd just moved to D.C. from Minnesota. My husband and I dropped our son at his elementary school at 8:30 (he'd just started pre-k) and then I let Perry off near his office. As I was driving our two-year-old to her daycare center I heard on the radio that a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. I immediately called Perry -- we have many friends from business school on Wall Street. He'd heard about the crash, too. "Those twin-engine planes are so dangerous," he said.

I settled our daughter into daycare and went to work. Someone told me a second Wall Street building had been hit. Then my phone rang. It was a manager in the production department, like me a mom with two young children. "I'm leaving," she told me. I asked, dumb-faced, why. "Because a plane just hit the Pentagon!" she yelled into the phone. I called my husband and my boss in the advertising department and told them I was going to get the kids. "Meet me at home," were my last words to Perry. I grabbed my car keys and left the building immediately.

Outside, what amazed me most was how blue and cloudless the sky was, and how fast the valets in the garage next to The Post were running. I'm sure they had kids, too, but they were going to stay until everyone's car was out so we could reach our families. For the first time in memory, calls from my cell phone -- to daycare, to the elementary school, to Perry -- wouldn't go through. A fast busy signal was all I got.

Traffic was so bad it took almost three hours to pick up the kids and get home. Perry was already there, frantic. After 30 minutes, I told him I had to go back to work. I will never forget the shock on his face. "You can't go," he said. "I have to," I said. "It's a daily newspaper. We're probably going to print a special edition this afternoon." As I grabbed my keys, he gave me a look that clearly communicated he thought I was the most foolish person on the planet.

I made it safely back to The Post -- no traffic now. When I left at the end of the day, my last memory was of the paper's top executives standing on D.C.'s downtown street corners, handing out copies of the second issue of the day with September 11, 2001, on the cover. For me, admidst the chaos and tragedy of September 11, I was proud to be a good mom and a good employee at the same time.

To mark the five year anniversary of 9/11, please share your memories of the day. Where were you? Where were your kids? What does the day mean to you now?

By Leslie Morgan Steiner |  September 11, 2006; 7:00 AM ET  | Category:  Conflicts
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