Eleven Years Ago Today

That morning, I was sitting in my office in Tarrytown, NY, in Westchester County just north of Manhattan.  Someone ran in to tell me to check the news.  We had no idea what was really going on at first--we hoped it was some kind of terrible accident.  Once it became clear that was not the case, everyone frantically started making phone calls to loved ones in the city.  

My brother was working on Wall Street at the time.  My sister-in-law (then his fiancee) worked at Cantor Fitzgerald.  I couldn't get hold of either one of them and was terrified.  All the circuits were overloaded or damaged and calls just weren't going through.  After long hours, I finally got a call from my parents on the West Coast...my brother had managed to get through somehow and the two of them were okay.  I did get home to northern NJ, where I was living at the time, only because the bridges north of NYC weren't closed.  Many of my colleagues spent the night in their offices or in nearby corporate housing because the city was sealed and they couldn't get in.      

My brother's wedding was scheduled for the following month, in western Ireland.  Not much short of my only sibling's wedding would have gotten me on a plane in October of 2001, but I went.  The bride was about an hour late to her own wedding and nobody said a word.  Why?

This woman is late to absolutely everything, and on 9/11 it saved her life.  She stopped to change shoes and buy a pastry and missed her usual train, emerging at the WTC station as the plane hit her office.  The people at the meeting she was supposed to be attending were all killed.  My brother's office was unaffected, but he, thinking that she was at work already, tried desperately to get INTO the tower to get to her and was turned away forcibly by firefighters.  A terrible day. They moved to England shortly thereafter to get away from the physical reminders.

Thinking today about the senseless loss of life and innocence and the devastation of that day--death out of a clear and beautiful early September sky.  Attacking civilians out of the blue is the absolute worst kind of cowardice, and I hope the bastards who organized that operation are all rotting in hell while their 72 virgins laugh at their distress.  Yes, I am bitter.

My thoughts and prayers are with all those who lost a loved one that day.  May time bring them peace.