Up Close And Personal - 9/11/01

As many of you I'm sure, I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard the news of the first crash, turning on the tv to witness the second one live. It was incomprehensible. We lost so many lives that day to the insanity that is terrorism. For the rest of us who watched in horror, we also lost a little of our innocence.

On a personal level, my son's best friend who worked in a building close to the attack, had to run, covered in a milky white dust as fast as he could to escape the area. He wound up walking for miles, finally crossing the bridge into Queens. For one of my colleagues, the outcome was far more sinister and devastating. Her son was lost in the twin towers on that fateful day and she and her husband searched with thousands of others, for days and days, hoping against hope that he was simply hurt, or had amnesia, or was in some distant hospital being attended to.

When they finally had a memorial service for their 31 year old, it was attended by many hundreds of people. They didn't even have his body to hold on to, or give him a proper burial. I stood in a long line of mourners to give them a hug and try to offer what little solace I could. It was a long time after that they finally were given his wallet, found in the rubble. For most of us, senseless acts like that are abstract in their horror, but they happen to real people, suffering very real losses.

There were so many heroes that day, on the ill fated planes, on the ground, climbing those stairs of the towers to an almost certain death to do what they were taught, to try to save lives. God bless them all!

It's hard to believe that 12 years have gone by since that fateful day.  The sheer disbelief we felt as the plot unfolded, the shock and terror that followed may be tempered with the passage of time, but our resolve has not.  

We will never forget!