10 years ago...

10 years ago I was a senior in college living in my off campus apartment with my dog in Upstate New York. Par for the course, I woke up at the first sign of light, walked my dog, and came home to turn on the Today Show. It was Matt Lauer’s voice that I heard first saying there were reports that a plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers. Was it an accident? What had happened? No one knew.

My Father worked at 1 World Trade for Kemper Insurance at the time. I didn’t know the towers by the North or South Tower as they were calling them that fateful morning in September, only 1 and 2 World Trade, I didn’t know which building had been hit. I called his office, his answering machine picked up. I called again, got the answering machine again. I called my Mom, waking her up to tell her what happened. I called my sister, also waking her up. No one was up, no one knew what had happened. Then I hear Matt Lauer’s voice again, “Oh God, another plane just hit the other building”.

I called my Dad’s office again, this time I just got a busy signal. Every outgoing/incoming call to the tri-state area got a busy signal for the remainder of the day....

My mom called back and told me to stay in my apartment. My sister was a sophomore in college in Maine…she said we were probably in the 2 safest places we could be at that moment. A friend came over to keep me company all day while we waited to hear word from my Dad, watching in horror as other planes crashed into buildings & fields, and as the towers eventually collapsed.

I honestly cannot tell you what I was thinking or how I was feeling that day. I think I might have mentally blocked it out of the fear I had not knowing where my Dad was most of that day.

Eventually, in the evening I got a call from my Stepmother saying that she had finally heard from my Dad, he was ok. He apparently got to work late that day, just in time to see the first building be hit, and then the second. He watched as people jumped from the burning buildings, a sight he said he will never forget. He saw one of the towers begin to sway and he started to run back up town to try to get on the subway out of the city. He got on one of the subway cars, which were eventually stopped underground, and could not get cell reception. He was finally able to borrow a lady’s phone to make an outgoing call, it was about 5 or 6 pm by the time we heard from him. He was safe.

Later, in the middle of the night I got a frantic call from my Dad, telling me that he sent me something in the mail, that it wasn’t a cruel joke, he just remembered. It was this card, a picture of the towers, sent from the train station before heading into work the morning of September 11^th, writing to tell me how proud he was of me for starting my last year of college…

I did not lose anyone very close to me that day. I do have a college friend who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, Scott Rohner, who lost his life way too soon, he was just 22, 2 paychecks into his new job. But my father always tells us that somewhere in the pile of rubble are pictures he had of my sister and I his desk…and we will always be connected to that day. It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years...but a day our family will never forget.