Who would you have called on September 11th?

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

I stumbled onto the Discovery channel’s Inside the Twin Towers television show last night. It was a staged performance infused with real survivors, relatives of victims and footage. It was amazing. I hadn’t seen that footage in a while and it truly is hard to believe. Truth is stranger than fiction I suppose.

Watching something like that you can’t help but transpose yourself into the situation asking yourself questions like “Where would I be? What would I do? And would I make it?”

What struck me most last night, as I allowed my mind to ponder the situation a little more in depth than usual, was the cell phone calls that were made. Whether it was a passenger on flight 93 or a person working in one of the towers…they were able to make a phone call! That in itself is a true testament to technology as well as human nature and it makes me wonder, who would I call?

Whenever you get into an unpleasant situation like, say, a flat tire, you usually call someone with your cell to ask them for help or possibly information. The calls on 9/11 must have started off that way. They were calling out to find out what was going on. But as the situation became more grave the calls were made to say goodbye. There are a lot of people out there that would give anything to say goodbye to a loved one before losing them in a tragic accident, how precious those phone calls were.

And then I thought to myself, if I were on the receiving end of that phone call what would I do when I finally received the cell phone bill? Stare at it? Frame it? I don’t know. And if I were on the receiving end of that phone call, would I be able to let that person get off the phone? There was one man in the show last night that lost his wife. He said that she called him repeatedly and then finally called and said, “Tell the boys I love them,” and he said “I will” and then he said the dialogue went as follows:

She said, I love you

I said, I love you

She said, I love you

I said, I love you

She said, I’m scared

I said, call me when you get down

And when he hung up the phone he said he was horrified because he knew she was calling to say goodbye. And before long he said he felt her pass through his body and knew she was gone. How precious those last words were.

All of this made me realize just exactly how much cell phone technology has forever changed the way we interact with each other. So go back to my original question and see if you can answer it…who would you call, if that were you on September, 11? My guess is that you wouldn’t even give it a second thought, you’d be dialing out of instinct.

My sincere condolences go out to all victims and families of that day.

-natalie

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