Morning Ireland

Ten years on, a memory still runs deep

by Cathal Mac Coille

My reason for remembering Tuesday 11 September 2011 is insignificant compared to its tragic consequences for so many. But for a few hours that day, I felt fears so strong and doubts so terrifying that they were to leave an indelible mark on my memory.

My son, then aged 22, was somewhere in the US, travelling by bus towards New York. That much I knew, no more. So as I listened at home to the first reports of the attacks on Joe Duffy’s programme, my mind began to calculate the likely timetable of my lad’s coast-to-coast journey. 

Like people all over the world, I switched on the TV to watch what followed, in disbelief and horror. But like a clock ticking ever louder, my direct personal concerns grew stronger. Surely, he must have heard the news by now. He’d realise we’d be worrying and so of course he’d call as soon as he could to put our minds at ease.

The scale of the tragedy became clearer. The fact that so many were dying in New York and so many would be bereaved was shown all too graphically and horribly on my television screen. Like many, I sensed that America and the world as we knew would be changed in many bad ways by these attacks.

So why didn’t he ring? He had a mobile phone, that I knew. So even if he’d been out of range when he first heard the news, surely he’d be able to make a call within a few hours. But no call came.

I reminded myself that his planned schedule meant he was probably some distance from New York. But that didn’t explain his failure to ring home. Not like him. Other members of the family called, what could I tell them?

Then suddenly, my minuscule agony ended. Four hours after the first plane struck the World Trade Centre, the phone rang. He was safe, and far from New York. On a walking tour of the Grand Canyon, he explained, he and his fellow walkers had been out of mobile phone range and blissfully unaware until their return.

So we could all calm down. Compared to the sadness the day brought to others, I know my experience of 11 September 2011 is trivial. But not for me.