On the 25th Anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001 …

Like many others, I will never forget Sept. 11, 2001. We lived at the time in Arlington, a neighborhood in Virginia that’s separated from Washington, D.C., by the Potomac River. 

My husband was a journalist. His office was in D.C. near the White House. 

On that day, I’d just dropped my child off at daycare when my husband called and told me to turn on the T.V. I did so, and learned that two planes had plowed into the World Trade Center. 

A third plane struck the Pentagon, only 7 miles up the road from our house.

I got my son back from daycare, and I wanted to drive into D.C. to get my husband. I had no idea if the bridges into D.C. would close. I didn’t know if more planes would fall out of the sky. My instinct was that if the world was going to end, I wanted my family together. He told me not to come, because there were rumors that the terrorists had planted car bombs in the city. (That turned out to be false.)

So I stayed home with my child. I monitored the news. I talked to the neighbors. Ours was a neighborhood filled with government contractors, army personnel and civil servants. Neighbors on either side of us had gone to the Pentagon that day, though not when the plane hit. 

I was talking to one particular neighbor about how strange it was that the road in front of our homes—usually crammed with bumper-to-bumper traffic—was empty. 

As we were talking, a helicopter flew overhead and we both ducked, even though helicopters fly by all the time in that area. 

It was a surreal and terrifying day. My husband made it home that night by catching a ride with a colleague.