That Day . . .

When I finally made it home late in the evening on September 11, 2001, I sat down to my computer and composed this email to respond to the countless emails I received that day. What I remember in that moment was feeling completely drained, almost blank. But I also remember feeling that I needed to write my story down right that moment, to make sure others really understood what had really happened and what was really going on, and so that I could never ever forget a single detail.

How I wish I had never had to re-type this. Yes, I still remember almost every single minute of that day in perfect detail. I still have dreams of it, and of the horror of it. But rereading this, seriously, you might hear people say "It was like it just happened yesterday" about something and you dismiss it, thinking that they're exaggerating. Except they're not. I'm not. Really. I can even remember the smell. The air. The eerie hush over an entire city, the city with a reputation of never sleeping. It was certainly never quiet. But that night it was. And I remember thinking about that quiet laying down in my bed that night.

Here is my recounting of that day. Written exactly how I wrote it that day.

What everyone saw on TV is horrible, but even more so when you're thinking, "You know, I was just down there a couple days ago doing this, or shopping, or going to school or whatever.

My view of the Manhattan skyline is changed forever, and I can't help but think of all the lives lost. Panic was everywhere. The horror of that day will live in my nightmares for a very long time.

I was running late to work and wondering why the subways were acting up. I was extremely annoyed. I saw someone talking on their cellphone and he was talking about a plane running into a building. I ignored him.

All of the sudden I get a call from my mom on my cellphone. "Where are you?" I tell her, "Where I am is late for work, I don't need to be dealing with this right now, what's going on?" Then she tells me a plane just flew into the World Trade Center. I look out the window of my subway and see it -- a beautiful day with the World Trade Center in flames.

I get to work finally, and there are several frantic messages from family across the country. I try to call everyone back, I try to write an email to everyone that I'm okay, when my boss evacuated our office. Our building is one block from the old Pan Am building, two blocks from Grand Central. It's not safe. There was another plane missing.

But we can't go home-- all ways in and out of the city are completely shut down. For those of you who don't understand the gravity of that -- Manhattan is an island. There are only so many ways on and off. What just seemed scary before, is all of the sudden becoming very scary and very personal. Several of us walk from our office all the way to the Upper West Side. The entire walk we are desperately trying to get through to family and loved ones. "We're okay, are you okay?" But all circuits are down. All off the sudden we hear people screaming and we walk by a building with the doors open and the TVs turned all the way up. The first building collapses. We were in the middle of this mass of people, all on their cellphones, all walking as fast as possible uptown to get away from any remotely important buildings, relaying information as we hear it. We talk to two women who were in the Trade Center as we watched the second tower fall. They were evacuated and got out. They had no idea if anyone else did.

They finally opened up subway lines and ways out of the city in the early afternoon, so we began the long trek home about 6:30pm. There were still several fires in surrounding buildings, power and water outages, and the possibility of other buildings in that area collapsing.

What wonderful acts of kindness happened in NYC that day-- people helping people out of buildings, shops opening their doors and letting us nomads know what's going on. I know people had this view of New York as such as scary place, and 9/11 certainly didn't help us out at all, but I think that people here are some of the kindest I've ever known. This is a wonderful city full of zillions of different kinds of people and the outpouring of generosity of spirit was wonderful to witness.

It wasn't the fear of not getting home that upset us all, it was the fear of either not reaching our families in time, or the desperate need to hear their voice. I can't imagine what my family went through that day.

What broke me down finally was the emails I had gotten from family I hadn't been able to reach. My sister emailing she loved me and just hoped I was okay. My uncle in Texas asking me to call. Friends from high school asking why I'm not responding to messages or answering the phone. I looked out my window that night and the skyline was filled with smoke.

To anyone who asks, I say to call ALL of your family right now and tell them you love them. Hug any within reach. And make sure your (scrapbook) albums say it too.