My 9/11 Story

On September 11, 2001, I was 19 years old. I was a sophomore in aerospace engineering at Auburn University. I was living with my brother in a trailer off campus. I worked at the Auburn Airport as a dispatcher.
My alarm went off around 7. It was a clock radio alarm. I listened to a few songs and then the news. The radio announcer said that a plane had run into the World Trade Center. Everyday I worked with small airplanes, so I assumed it was a two seater aircraft that had gotten off course.
I took a shower and got dressed. I was thinking about a linear algebra test that I had that day. I went into the living room and turned on the tv. The image of that smoking tower is still clear in my mind.
I went into my brother's room and woke him up. Clark had been up late working in the architectural studio. We rarely saw each other in the mornings, and I think he most have known from my voice that something was wrong. He sat on the sofa with me, and we watched the first tower fall together. I feel like it was some horrible mixing of our interests, an airplane and a buidling.
I can't remember the first time I talked to Tony that day. We had been dating for less than a month. I know I talked to him some time that morning. He and his roommates were watching the same terrible news unfold. I was already in love with him, and I recall being worried about an attack in Atlanta. He lived very close to the tallest buidlings there.
I went to class. My linear algebra professor gave us the option of taking the test or not. He gave us a little speech about how terrorists want to distrupt our daily lives, and we should not let the attacks affect what we need to accomplish. The class voted to take the test. I can't remember what grade I earned, but I ended up dropping the class a few weeks later. It was not a good idea to take linear algebra and differential equations in the same semester.
I met Jennifer for lunch at Waffle House. We were both pretty upset. We both had thoughts of war in our heads. We discussed the scary option of the draft and how it would affect Tony and Jamie. I worried for Catherine and Joe for the same reason. I can remember us hugging and crying while sitting at the counter.
After lunch, I went to work. Even though all flights had been grounded, the airport stayed open. I caught up on what paperwork needed to get done. The airfield seemed so quiet and empty. I spent most of my shift watching the news coverage.
My mother called me at some point in the day and requested that Clark and I spend that night at her house. On my way to Opelika, I filled up the Blazer with gas. I was worried about price gouging and fuel shortages.
My family all gathered at home that night. We had a quiet dinner and thanked god for each other.

Five years later so much has changed.
Tony and I are married and have a baby. Clark is married with a son due in a few weeks. Jennifer married Jamie, but lost him in an accident this year. Our husbands were never dragged into war, but Catherine's husband is serving his second tour of duty in Iraq.
I work with airplanes everyday, and I fly several times a month. The realities of September 11th surround me, but terror will not stop me from flying.

My thoughts on breastfeeding

We started feeding Maggie real food recently. I have this strange pride in my biological power to grow babies. Maggie lived inside my body for nine months, and I fed her so well that she weighed nine pounds at birth. During the subsequent eight months she has eaten nothing but breast milk that I produced for her. She now weighs nearly nineteen pounds.

Tony has contributed one tiny cell to this project, and I am responsible for all of the rest. I produced nineteen pounds of cuteness. In a way, I’m kind of sad that Maggie will now start getting nourishment from other sources. I have enjoyed being depended on for all of her food. I still plan on breast feeding for a long time, but now my breast milk will be complemented by other foods.

My brother and I were breastfed. My mother always talked about nursing us with a smile even though she did it at a time when there was very little support for breastfeeding. Her mother and mother-in-law had bottle fed their babies. I feel like my decision to breastfeed was made much easier by my mother’s example. I never understood that smile that came to her face when she discussed nursing, but now I do.

It’s hard to describe how much I love nursing. I don’t think anyone can understand it that hasn’t had a fussy baby immediately calmed by breast milk. I feel the ability to produce milk is like a superpower. Men can’t do it, and many women won’t even try it.

The other wonderful benefits of nursing are evident in my body. I am now in a smaller clothes size than I was in 9th grade. I have lost all of my pregnancy weight plus thirty more pounds. I haven’t had a period since February of 2005. I think nursing gives me lots of “happy hormones”; I truly feel like these nine months have been the best of my life.