I worked a data entry job for the TennCare office in Nashville. A lot of us in data entry used headphones because we weren't supposed to talk while we were keying in documents. I liked listening to books on tape but my co-worker Eriko was listening to the radio. She said "they crashed into the towers" all of a sudden with some urgency, but she's native Japanese and kind of hard to understand. I was on closest terms with her and asked what she meant and she said it again, "they crashed the planes into the twin towers." At the time I thought, "must be those big ones in Mylasia" because terrorism always happens overseas, not here. Then our supervisor announced they were bringing a TV into the office. We all stopped working and watched. I know my first thoughts were "how many more are coming?" and "I've gotta get to my kids" We were all stunned, I think we were all thinking the same thing.
When my hubby and I got together at home we just talked and talked about it. When my kids were home we sat the oldest down and tried to explain to her what was happening. Her face broke up and she started crying asking if we were all going to die and I told her I thought we were definitely at war and it was hard to tell what would happen, but that her daddy and I would always protect her and her sister.
My brother and his wife came to our apartment that evening as they were both in the army reserve and had been called to Nashville that morning. I think we stayed up late into the evening watching it happen over and over again.
I have had a hard time watching it since then, knowing there were babies on a couple of those planes. Where I live now there are flags put up for every victim, and there are a couple of flags with little teddybears tied to them.
