One of the things that has been on my mind leading up to this Memorial Day has been the prevalence of PTSD – post Traumatic Stress Disorder. So many of our men coming home from the wars are leaving their minds behind – nightmares, flashbacks, depression and more. This is something I’ve had the misfortune to see firsthand, though on a minor level. Despite what the TV shows tell you, PTSD doesn’t generally manifest in shooting sprees… it’s more insidious than that. It’s a personality shift in your husband or son, a withdrawing from loved ones, a cry in the night.

I’ve never been to war. I’ve only ever seen the after effects. However, there are many civilians who have been struck with PTSD from the events of September 11, 2001. Nightmares, phobias, paranoia, uncontrolled anger issues. Check, check, check, check.

We are fighting a Global War on Terror on two official fronts because of the events that took place that day, and the men (and women) who serve are out there risking their lives and their minds to help alleviate the nightmares we at home have endured since that day.

I myself will never forget the events of that day, and I include them here for you. But I must say, since the death of bin Laden – even though he was merely a bogeyman – I sleep a little easier at night. So thank you to all those who serve now, and who have served before, for taking away my bad dreams and making them your own. Your sacrifice is not unappreciated.

It was still summer. My future husband was still shacked up with me in my trendy east end apartment in Montreal. He had the summer off to be a tourist, and I had quit my job a month earlier with the Montreal satellite office of Manhattan-based Everlast Apparel. My plan was to chill out in my city before moving across an ocean to be with the aforementioned character, Andy.

Through the haze of sleep, Andy was able to hear the ringing phone which was too low to penetrate my day-glo orange earplugs. He staggered out of the bed and followed the phone cord out of the bedroom, down the hall and through the kitchen to the sun room, where the phone rested on the couch. The call had gone to voicemail. It was early – too early for any of our friends. Andy checked the message, figuring it might be his parents calling from overseas.

The call changed everything.

“I hope when you were in New York two weeks ago you saw the World Trade Center, cause it just fucking blew up!” shrieked my best friend Heather into my answering service.

Andy was confused, and called her back.

He came into the bedroom after hanging up the call. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he touched my shoulder and said, “Heather called. America is at war, but they don’t know who with. The Twin Towers are gone. We have to go to Heather’s.”

I opened one eye, reached up and pulled out one ear plug. “Wwhhat?”

“Just get dressed. We’re going to Heather’s.”

I pulled my hair back in a ponytail, put on my black sun dress – no panties, slid on my sandals, and we walked through eerily quiet streets to Heather’s apartment three blocks away. The sky was this shade of blue that I’ll never forget – September 11th Blue. To this day, whenever I see it, I have to turn away from the brilliance of it.

Heather opened her apartment door like an undertaker ushering us in to send off our dearly departed. She took my hand and led me to the living room, where the glowing TV gave off an image I could NOT comprehend. The planes flew, and the towers fell, over and over again. It was 10:30am. I began to laugh. A high pitched, semi-hysterical, is-the-joke-on-me? kind of laugh.

“Tea.” she said.

She and I went into the kitchen to boil water, leaving Andy to stare wordlessly at the screen.

We boiled the water. We steeped the tea. I picked up two cups – one each for me and Andy – and splashed hot water on my hand. I screamed. The tiny splash didn’t warrant the scream that came from my mouth. I just screamed and screamed, unable to stop. No one moved to comfort me. We were all broken.

“Shawn has all the US cable channels. We’ll grab a cab to his place.” Shawn was Heather’s finace, an out of work CBC reporter on the busiest news day of our lifetimes.

“No,” I said, “we’ll wait till noon. That’s four planes already. We don’t know what will happen when Los Angeles opens.”

We waited. I can’t remember if we said much, or what we would have said.

At 12:30, with all flights around North America locked down, we hailed a taxi to go over the Mont Royal to Shawn’s.

There we were met by two more out-of-work reporters. Shawn’s friends. I went into the kitchen to rustle up some nourishment, and found only tomato juice and vodka. It was a Bloody Mary day.

Over and over we watched the towers fall. We watched Peter Jennings go from unshaven with no makeup to put-together to tired over the course of the day. We flipped channels, until we came to the colored test pattern of a NYC station whose antenna was atop one of the towers. Suddenly it was real.

That night, taking the Metro home from Shawn’s, I grabbed a discarded Gazette. The front page showed the devastation, and for the first time I saw the shorthand: 9/11. It took me a moment to place the confusion: Never in my lifetime had the Montreal Gazette printed an afternoon edition.

This was serious.

The next day, the four of us – me, Heather, Andy and Shawn – all stood outside the collection office of Hema Quebec, the blood agency. For five hours we stood in line with other good samaritans, not knowing yet – we wouldn’t know for several days – that there were no survivors who would need the blood we were offering up.

Shooting the shit with Kevin Smith