As I was reviewing my Facebook memories for this day, I came across a memory from a friend whom we met in Saudi Arabia and was at the time in Ankara, Turkey.
I was in The house that we had settled down in Ankara - Turkey that day. It was two years since we had retired from Aramco.
I was sitting at the kitchen table checking my e-mails on my lap top. My husband Shevket called from upstairs saying that something strange is happening in the USA and that I should turn on the TV news. But just then the yahoo screen started to give the news. I watched the second airplane hitting the tower live. We were both tongue tied. I still turn rigid upon remembering the event.
Later that night, I remembered that the taxi driver who was taking us from the airport to our hotel on our first trip to NY had told us to visit the twin towers. Erol was only 5 years old and was busy throwing up into the small bag that I had picked up from the airplane because his stomach was upset. Aaaand I regret not having toured the twin towers on that trip.
A few hours later our son called from the USA. He was a boarding student in Boston at the time. I thought he had remembered that trip and would tell me that he wished we had entered inside the twin towers. But noooo. He spoke in a low voice and said “Maaam what is happening. Why this. Why a moslem did this. My school friends have started to look at me with suspicion. Are we that baaad”. I felt a huge disappointment and fear in his voice.
I called a friend of mine. They took my son from his dorm and let him stay in their house that day. They took him to a fancy breakfast the next morning to build some morale.
I guess his friends got back with him because he never complained again.
But his grades were the lowest that term. He recovered later and graduated with an average above 3.5. It effected religions of all kinds. Mostly the humans.
Sorry I am late writing this comment but I saw it just now. I have been busy lately taking care of my sister who got the c- disease. So not much time to spare on the internet.
This is something I wrote back in 2021. At that time America was remembering the 20th anniversary.
I wrote this memory 2 years ago. It is hard to realize that there are young adults in their twenties who have no memory of this day and have only learned about it from school textbooks or memories shared by family members.
September 11, 2001 a day our generation will never forget, because it changed the course of history. 9-11 as we often refer to the day are also the 3 numbers we use when we place an emergency phone call. And what an emergency! Commercial Air traffic literally stood still for days. People were stranded, some far from home until the air embargo was lifted.
Peter and I were in Saudi Arabia that day. Peter had spent the day at work and I had been out shopping in town with some friends in the local Big city. At 5 o'clock my friend, Nancy Heitmeyer, called and said "Do you have a tv in your apartment?". Yes, we do. "Turn it on, something unbelievable is happening in the United States. A plane has hit the Twin Towers in NYC." Oh, it must have been one of those small private planes. "No, it is a commercial airliner!" So I turned on the tv and looked for a news channel. And as I heard the news, I watched a 2nd commercial plane hit the Twin Towers. I sat down on the nearest chair stunned. We spent the remainder of the evening watching the scene and getting updates on the situation at Janice Ann Cameron-Taylor and Ron Ronald D Taylor's home where they had a large screen tv and a satellite feed. Janice was more shook up than the rest of us because she knew what it was like to be on a hijacked airline. That night she told us an unbelievable story of how she had been working on a Pan AM flight when it had been hijacked and eventually blown up in the desert. We were all so stunned we forgot to ask questions. But her story and what we were seeing that night on satellite tv left us stunned.
I had many friends, like Amal Shalaby Gharbo, who had just dropped their sons or daughters off at boarding school for their first year of school away from home. In fact I had only arrived back in Saudi Arabia myself. Those friends were stranded in airports across the US, many having no idea why their planes had made an emergency landing or why their flights were cancelled.
All of a sudden people's plans changed! Important events were missed or cancelled all together. In my parent's case, my Mom's older sister, Titi Mary died in Puerto Rico on September 11, 2001 and my parents were unable to attend the funeral. Additionally for years as we focused on 9-11 we somehow missed that September 11 was Peter's father's birthday. By 2001 Peter's dad had been deceased for 11 years and his family had never been keen on having big birthday celebrations, so it wasn't till a few years ago when we were working on Peter's family tree that I realized the connection.
We flew from Saudi Arabia on September 16 for Amsterdam and London. In London we met Americans who were stranded even though flights had been resumed, there were thousands of airline passengers trying to rebook on a limited number of flights that were allowed to return to the US from abroad. Later that month we boarded a river cruise in Amsterdam and discovered that about half of our fellow cruise passengers had cancelled their reservations because they were afraid to fly or leave the US. We spent many hours on that cruise helping fellow cruise passengers interpret news feeds about the Muslim world. Upon returning to Saudi Arabia in mid October we came face to face with pandemonium. People were terrified. People were angry. People wanted to go home. All of a sudden fellow workers and friends were looking at one another with suspicion and jaundiced eyes. Individuals clustered in small groups whispering. Rumors ran rampant in both the North American expat community and the Muslim community. A large corporation of more than 60 nationalities all of a sudden fractured into many splintered parts and looked at one another with suspicion and maybe a bit of fear. People were on edge. The US embassy sent out emissaries to calm citizen's fears. And families were leaving Saudi Arabia in droves. Many individuals received phone calls from family and friend back home imploring them with tears to return to the US. Several of our long time friends heeded the call and turned in their resignation and went back home. It was years before the employees, their families, and the company my husband worked for began to calm down. Over night an ugly wall of suspicion ripped through our community often dividing friends and their opinions of one another's country and fellow citizens. Some of those wounds never healed. I think the same in a larger sense is true here in the US with our response to immigrants and refugees from Muslim majority countries. I pray that as we came to forgive Japan for Pearl Harbor that we as a country will set aside our hatred and our deep revulsion for what happened on 9-11 and learn to forgive those nations and religions that to us signify the enemy responsible for this horrible travesty.
Lori,
As I was reviewing my Facebook memories for this day, I came across a memory from a friend whom we met in Saudi Arabia and was at the time in Ankara, Turkey.
I was in The house that we had settled down in Ankara - Turkey that day. It was two years since we had retired from Aramco.
I was sitting at the kitchen table checking my e-mails on my lap top. My husband Shevket called from upstairs saying that something strange is happening in the USA and that I should turn on the TV news. But just then the yahoo screen started to give the news. I watched the second airplane hitting the tower live. We were both tongue tied. I still turn rigid upon remembering the event.
Later that night, I remembered that the taxi driver who was taking us from the airport to our hotel on our first trip to NY had told us to visit the twin towers. Erol was only 5 years old and was busy throwing up into the small bag that I had picked up from the airplane because his stomach was upset. Aaaand I regret not having toured the twin towers on that trip.
A few hours later our son called from the USA. He was a boarding student in Boston at the time. I thought he had remembered that trip and would tell me that he wished we had entered inside the twin towers. But noooo. He spoke in a low voice and said “Maaam what is happening. Why this. Why a moslem did this. My school friends have started to look at me with suspicion. Are we that baaad”. I felt a huge disappointment and fear in his voice.
I called a friend of mine. They took my son from his dorm and let him stay in their house that day. They took him to a fancy breakfast the next morning to build some morale.
I guess his friends got back with him because he never complained again.
But his grades were the lowest that term. He recovered later and graduated with an average above 3.5. It effected religions of all kinds. Mostly the humans.
Sorry I am late writing this comment but I saw it just now. I have been busy lately taking care of my sister who got the c- disease. So not much time to spare on the internet.
Thanks, Lilly, another powerful perspective.
Thanks Lori,
This is something I wrote back in 2021. At that time America was remembering the 20th anniversary.
I wrote this memory 2 years ago. It is hard to realize that there are young adults in their twenties who have no memory of this day and have only learned about it from school textbooks or memories shared by family members.
September 11, 2001 a day our generation will never forget, because it changed the course of history. 9-11 as we often refer to the day are also the 3 numbers we use when we place an emergency phone call. And what an emergency! Commercial Air traffic literally stood still for days. People were stranded, some far from home until the air embargo was lifted.
Peter and I were in Saudi Arabia that day. Peter had spent the day at work and I had been out shopping in town with some friends in the local Big city. At 5 o'clock my friend, Nancy Heitmeyer, called and said "Do you have a tv in your apartment?". Yes, we do. "Turn it on, something unbelievable is happening in the United States. A plane has hit the Twin Towers in NYC." Oh, it must have been one of those small private planes. "No, it is a commercial airliner!" So I turned on the tv and looked for a news channel. And as I heard the news, I watched a 2nd commercial plane hit the Twin Towers. I sat down on the nearest chair stunned. We spent the remainder of the evening watching the scene and getting updates on the situation at Janice Ann Cameron-Taylor and Ron Ronald D Taylor's home where they had a large screen tv and a satellite feed. Janice was more shook up than the rest of us because she knew what it was like to be on a hijacked airline. That night she told us an unbelievable story of how she had been working on a Pan AM flight when it had been hijacked and eventually blown up in the desert. We were all so stunned we forgot to ask questions. But her story and what we were seeing that night on satellite tv left us stunned.
I had many friends, like Amal Shalaby Gharbo, who had just dropped their sons or daughters off at boarding school for their first year of school away from home. In fact I had only arrived back in Saudi Arabia myself. Those friends were stranded in airports across the US, many having no idea why their planes had made an emergency landing or why their flights were cancelled.
All of a sudden people's plans changed! Important events were missed or cancelled all together. In my parent's case, my Mom's older sister, Titi Mary died in Puerto Rico on September 11, 2001 and my parents were unable to attend the funeral. Additionally for years as we focused on 9-11 we somehow missed that September 11 was Peter's father's birthday. By 2001 Peter's dad had been deceased for 11 years and his family had never been keen on having big birthday celebrations, so it wasn't till a few years ago when we were working on Peter's family tree that I realized the connection.
We flew from Saudi Arabia on September 16 for Amsterdam and London. In London we met Americans who were stranded even though flights had been resumed, there were thousands of airline passengers trying to rebook on a limited number of flights that were allowed to return to the US from abroad. Later that month we boarded a river cruise in Amsterdam and discovered that about half of our fellow cruise passengers had cancelled their reservations because they were afraid to fly or leave the US. We spent many hours on that cruise helping fellow cruise passengers interpret news feeds about the Muslim world. Upon returning to Saudi Arabia in mid October we came face to face with pandemonium. People were terrified. People were angry. People wanted to go home. All of a sudden fellow workers and friends were looking at one another with suspicion and jaundiced eyes. Individuals clustered in small groups whispering. Rumors ran rampant in both the North American expat community and the Muslim community. A large corporation of more than 60 nationalities all of a sudden fractured into many splintered parts and looked at one another with suspicion and maybe a bit of fear. People were on edge. The US embassy sent out emissaries to calm citizen's fears. And families were leaving Saudi Arabia in droves. Many individuals received phone calls from family and friend back home imploring them with tears to return to the US. Several of our long time friends heeded the call and turned in their resignation and went back home. It was years before the employees, their families, and the company my husband worked for began to calm down. Over night an ugly wall of suspicion ripped through our community often dividing friends and their opinions of one another's country and fellow citizens. Some of those wounds never healed. I think the same in a larger sense is true here in the US with our response to immigrants and refugees from Muslim majority countries. I pray that as we came to forgive Japan for Pearl Harbor that we as a country will set aside our hatred and our deep revulsion for what happened on 9-11 and learn to forgive those nations and religions that to us signify the enemy responsible for this horrible travesty.
What amazing and unique memories of that scary times. Thanks for sharing them with us. I know your descendants will be much enriched by your record.