Where were you when you learned the world stopped spinning twenty years ago today? If you are older than 25, I’m certain you remember as clearly as if September 11, 2001 happened yesterday.
For my wife and me, it was a typical weekday morning rush helping our daughter and son get ready for school and ourselves off to work. In the midst of our familiar routine the phone rang. My brother-in-law was at the other end: “Turn on the TV.”
“What channel?” my wife asked.
“Any channel,” he said gravely.
The surreal images were beyond imagination: One of New York City’s iconic Twin Towers was billowing black smoke after being hit by a jetliner; then a second plane, seemingly flying in slow motion, slammed into the bookend skyscraper; thereafter the North and 
South Towers both collapsed, also as if in slow motion.
In all, four hijacked passenger jets were turned into terrorist missiles with the other two crashing into the Pentagon, and – as a result of heroic passengers putting up a fight with their lives – a field in Pennsylvania en route to its target in Washington D.C.
Today, we pay remembrance to the nearly 3,000 lives lost in the horrific attacks. The truth, of course, is that the loved ones and friends and co-workers of those victims have remembered them every single day for the past two decades.
Nine months after the infamous event, I was in New York City covering the NBA Finals of which I remember nothing specific. But I cannot forget my visit to Ground Zero, which by then was a deep, steep-walled, square hole that looked like a giant grave being dug.
I have toured Gettysburg’s battlefields and cemeteries; visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall with more than 58,000 names etched into the black mirror-like marble; and seen the USS Arizona Memorial that marks the resting place of 1,102 sailors. The sight of a canyon-sized hole at Ground Zero squeezed my heart ever as tightly.
The devastation that had been cleared away was numbing: 200,000 tons of twisted steel wreckage, 600,000 square feet of shattered glass, 425 cubic yards of concrete, and even 40,000 doorknobs that had all come crashing down from 110 stories high, entombing more than 2,600 innocent victims.
Left behind were shattered hopes, wrecked lives and broken hearts – and also, at a nearby makeshift memorial site, countless notes and cards. One hand-written message I saw read: “You will always be remembered as heroes” in honor of the 344 FDNY firefighters and 71 police officers who lost their lives after courageously rushing into the burning buildings trying to save the lives of others.
Another note, this one from a young schoolchild who wrote in her best printing: “Dear Firemen, THANK YOU for everything you did for our country. Love, Jodi.”
Similarly there was a picture of seven firemen in uniform, young and handsome and in the prime of their lives, with these words: “Thank You, Seven In Heaven, Ladder 101 FDNY.”
And this: “To Daddy, We love you, miss you and you’ll always be in out hearts. Love, Gyasi and Craig.” My heart aches for them growing up without their Daddy and all the milestones – graduations, weddings, perhaps the birth of his grandchildren – he missed.
At Ground Zero that day, I also met a woman whose husband died in one of the Towers. Cradling an infant baby, she tearfully shared this: “Her father never met her.”
That baby girl is now 19 going on 20, and to her 9-11-2001 does not seem like yesterday. It was her lifetime ago.
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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com