9/11

10 years ago I was 17.

10 years ago I had no idea what terrorism was.

10 years ago today I was in New York.


It's hard to get too much into detail, as some of it is slightly fuzzy. I was young and processing what I had just saw was difficult. To know that everything I was watching on the news was happening a half hour away from where I was standing was surreal. I watched my father pace the house yelling, "I need to go help!" and my mother on her knees crying. My sister was 10 and asked questions no one knew how to answer. Bad men hit the Towers with airplanes - it was almost as simple as that.


The night before we were Downtown. We had dinner in Little Italy and drove back home to Long Island over the Brooklyn Bridge. My dad drove passed the WTC and I looked outside the car window and up... and I kept looking up and up at the two Towers that seemed to go on forever - standing proudly at the end of the New York sky line. My father turned back to my sister and said, "You're the only one who has yet to visit the Towers. When we come back in 6 months we'll take you to the top. You can see the entire world from there." And we drove off...and I watched the Towers shrink smaller and smaller as we hurried down the bridge. They were brilliant in the moon's gentle light. Their bright silvery grey made them twinkle in the sky. They shined down on New York's dark night as a symbol of protection, freedom and a reminder that we are America the strong and brave. I can personally say their last night on this Earth was a beautiful one and I will always remember them in that way.


Today we remember the ones we lost...and as I sit here in bed with my coffee now 27, a wife & mother listening for the 10th time the names being read, my heart is sad. It's amazing how time passes and life goes on - children grown, adults get older - the clock ticks away. This day will never get any easier, we will never forget. Tears will always fall, as the Towers did, for those who fell with them. 091101 <3

I apologize for the pictures of pictures. Baby was sleeping and didn't want to use the loud scanner. These pictures are from 9/11/01 and 9/12/01. The Ground Zero pictures are from about 6 months - 1 year after. Names were still all over downtown - family members trying to locate loved ones. The last picture my father took in the 1980's.