My 9/11

This is my attempt to chronicle the events of September 11, 2001 as they transpired before me. I am composing and, with Lynne’s help, editing this account in the summer of 2002. I suppose it has taken this long to write my story because I needed time to gain some perspective on the experience. During my walk home that Tuesday morning, I was determined to write in my journal as soon as I walked in the door. I have not written anything about it, however, until now.

Among my earliest memories . . .

. . . I can remember the World Trade Center’s twin towers. Mom and Dad took a picture of them from the Staten Island Ferry in early 1968 and that photo has hung on the walls of our homes for as long as I can remember. That hazy, bluish-gray image is historically significant because it was taken before the towers were completed, and clearly shows one tower being significantly shorter than the other. The World Trade Center was thus in my vocabulary and on my visual radar from the youngest of ages. To me, it was as much of a symbol of New York City as the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty.

Ironically, having been the ones who introduced me to the World Trade Center, it was also my parents who prompted me to begin writing about my experience of its destruction. During their visit to New York City (May 9-14, 2002) they stressed to me the importance of my witnessing this event and how valuable a personal account of it might be to future generations of our family. And so with these thoughts in my mind, I begin . . .

. . . in the office.

I arrived at the Word Processing Department of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP at about 8:00AM that Tuesday morning. The 41-story building in which Stroock houses its downtown office space is located at 180 Maiden Lane in Manhattan. My department is located on the 39th floor, in an interior office devoid of windows.

Every morning, Andrew, the daytime proofreader in the adjoining and also windowless room, listens to National Public Radio to get his daily fix of news and eclectic music. He usually exhibits a calm and pleasant demeanor, which made his announcement and its urgent delivery all the more powerful. I did not see the exact time, but I can guess it was about 8:50AM when Andrew opened his door and reported, “an airplane just hit the World Trade Center.” I will never forget the look of sudden alarm and deep concern on his face or the urgent tone in his voice when he spoke those words.

Andrew, fellow Word Processor Martine, and I quickly walked down the hall to look out of a west-facing window in an unoccupied office. From Andrew’s brief report and those we received in the hallway, the type of plane had not yet been determined. Some said it was a small commuter aircraft, others claimed that it was a huge commercial jet.

My first impression of the damage to Tower One was that it did not appear to be too serious. My southeastern vantage point, however, kept the location of impact on the north side of the tower obscured from view. From the looks of things there must have been fire on several floors, but it did not seem like the sort of damage that would cause extensive casualties.

Putting it in simplest terms, there had been a terrible accident from which the effect would take a long time to recover. I wondered about fighting the fire and then repairing the building–those would certainly be difficult tasks. I tried to be positive despite the tragedy, thinking that it would be interesting to watch the repairs as they were completed over the upcoming months.

More about what I saw: I was on the 39th floor of 180 Maiden Lane and the first plane hit toward the top of Tower One. My view was from at least forty floors below and more than six blocks away from the crash site–a significant distance. Though the tower did not appear to be severely damaged, some of the external steel framework was bent and missing in places and smoke funneled out of a handful of broken windows on each of about four or five floors. Andrew, Martine, and I looked at the building for several minutes and then, reasoning that we were in no danger and that the proper authorities were handling the problem as best they could, Martine and I returned to our office. Andrew remained by the window, still there when the second airliner flew into Tower Two.

After returning to my desk, I composed the following e-mail to Lynne and my immediate family (Mom, Dad, Warren, Kelly, Marla, Terrell, Natalie, and James, to be exact). I sent it and then pointed my web browser to CNN’s website to read their real-time updates on what we still presumed to be an accident.

Date: 9/11/01
Time: 8:59AM
Subject: World Trade Center Explosion – I’m Okay, Not Affected
Just want to let you all know (if you haven’t heard) that an airplane crashed into the World Trade Center. It’s a horrible disaster, but I am in absolutely no danger. I’m looking at the crash site from a window in my building–absolutely unbelievable. But again, I’m in no danger. Wow. Makes you put things in perspective.
Wiley

The words seem to have an immense and poignant naivety to them, considering how much worse things would get. In his reply the following afternoon, Warren captured that sentiment:

Date: 9/12/01
Time: 2:29PM
I don’t know when you’ll read this, but I just wanted to let you know that we’re being kept up-to-date from various family and friends. Needless to say, we were relieved to hear of your phone calls subsequent to this message. If you re-read it, it sort of feels like a first message from the Titanic, something like, “We’ve hit a bit of roughness.” I’m sure when you wrote it that nobody but the bad guys knew just how horrible it was about to get. We’re glad you are safe, and will continue to try to call you. The lines have been busy all last night and this day (Wednesday Sept. 12). Alpine Homecoming is this weekend. Wish you could be here………Thanks for heeding when they said it was time to the hell out of Dodge!
Warren & family

Regarding the initial crash, none of the three of us heard anything when it happened. It was the radio that notified Andrew and then he opened his door to tell us. Such was not the case with the second impact. A few minutes later we felt the BOOM!

The 40th floor of 180 Maiden Lane, immediately above the Word Processing department, is frequently used for filming television shows and movies. The large windows provide a picturesque cityscape background in every direction–of downtown and midtown Manhattan, Brooklyn and much of the harbor. Because of the frequent set changes, pieces of equipment are sometimes dropped and create a significant crashing sounds. We are used to that sort of heavy thud, but this BOOM was much more sinister and longer lasting. When it happened, I recall immediately thinking that something inside Tower One must have exploded–a chemical storage room or something of the sort. I looked at Martine, whose face seemed to mirror my emotions of fear, anxiety and wonder.

My memory of the time between hearing the second plane’s BOOM and evacuating the building was foggy even later that day. I pieced together these moments from the mental snapshots that remain with me.

We ran down the hallway, the same hallway we had been in just minutes earlier to view the first plane crash. On our way to the unoccupied office we heard attorneys and secretaries alike shouting various things. Among them I clearly heard, “Oh my God, Oh My God, Oh My God,” “Get out of the building,” and from some intuitive co-workers I recall, “We’re under attack” and something beginning with “Terrorists . . .” I lost track of where Martine and Andrew were (maybe behind me?) but I walked into the office and stared out of the window at what was to be only the third most horrifying thing I witnessed that day.

To best understand what I saw, it is essential to understand the juxtaposition of the plane impacts and the Towers to my vantage point. First, Tower Two was positioned closer to my building than was Tower One. The second plane hit the southern face of Tower Two, which was in clear view from 180 Maiden Lane. The damage to Tower Two was midway up the building, 40-50 stories high, close to eye level with my floor (the first crash occurred twice as high). And, although there were six city blocks between the World Trade Center and my building, the blocks in downtown Manhattan are very short. By my map-reading estimates, the impact point on Tower Two was less than 1,000 yards “as the crow flies” from the office where I stood.

By the time I looked out, the huge fireball we have all seen on television was gone. What was left was a gaping hole approximately five stories tall and very wide. Additionally, the eastern face of the tower seemed torn along the route of the explosion. I could see in but, unlike others with whom I have spoken, I did not see any people inside the building. For this I am thankful. Flames licked upward and at first seemed small because of my distance away, but I soon realized that they were two or three (or more) stories high.

The facade of vertical steel beams was ripped apart in places (if you can imagine what sort of force would “tear” steel), bent and completely missing in others. Paper was flying around everywhere, like a ticker tape parade. I kept thinking that what should be neatly tucked away inside file cabinets inside offices within the building was now floating everywhere, random and chaotic.

My gaze drifted from Tower Two to Martine’s face, but somehow we were already back in our department (which does not account for the time it took us to return from the outer office . . . we might have run). Her face said everything: it was simultaneously full of terror and fear and determination. She said simply, “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

Illogically, I walked to my computer and went through my daily routine of closing the open applications and logging out. I grabbed my satchel and headed to the emergency stairwell. Apparently, people peg me as the guy who hangs around to help everyone. I like to think of myself as someone who things of others before myself, but, and it shames me to recall this, in the heat of this moment my thoughts focused only on getting myself [the hell] out of this building alive. Diane, another co-worker, joked the following week that I knocked her down on my way to the fire exit.

Once in the stairwell, thirty-nine flights lay ahead. My mind began to race. I was impressed by the overall state of everyone’s calm. The mood was not relaxed by any means; it just was not the out-of-control panic you might expect. People were scared, but controlled their fear enough to walk down the stairs with the utmost efficiency.

It was after descending several stories that I began to feel the greatest fear I ever hope to feel. I have been in a car accident in which the other vehicle plowed into my side just behind my seat. I have also been in several other nearly disastrous driving situations. I have jumped out of an airplane, which is quite a trying experience for someone who experiences vertigo. I have been “cliffed-out” on a 100-foot-high ledge with only the assistance of another teenager (one more reckless than myself) to save my life. And, hell, I was even bitten by a wild rodent in Robbie’s backyard when we lived in Salt Flat, Texas–a region where rabies is common. Have seen Old Yeller, I monitored that bite with great concern. However, these events combined did not induce the fear I began to feel walking down that stairwell.

When the second plane hit, everyone seemed to register simultaneously that this was not an accident–simultaneously, but not quite immediately. For about 10 seconds I tried to imagine an air traffic controller’s coordinates being off, that maybe a flight pattern was misdirected from one of the nearby airports. It did not take long to discount that theory, but it is my own example of trying to first reason that this must have been an accident. It was not. As the magnitude of the situation washed over me, I understood only that it was a deliberate effort to destroy buildings in New York City (the grander scheme of targeting several cities across the United States did not even cross my mind at that point in time).

The emergency stairwell has neither windows nor any other access to the outside world, so I had no way of knowing that other buildings in the city were not also being hit with other planes at that very moment. My ultimate fear was that a plane would hit my building at any second. If that were to happen where I was, I would die. I could not turn the steering wheel to avoid the oncoming car; I could not grab a rope and pull myself up the cliff. I would be completely powerless. I would be dead. Instantly. THAT was the greatest fear I ever hope to feel.

As I neared the lower floors, THAT level of fear began to subside. The exit door opened and I walked briskly across the atrium, more noticeably than ever enclosed entirely in glass, and out the front door.

Outside . . .

. . . it was a beautiful sunny day. To the east, downtown Brooklyn looked vibrant. I looked west. From the towers came fire and billowing smoke. The crashes, as I had seen before, were located halfway up Tower Two and toward the top of Tower One. It did not look as serious from down here, no doubt due to my greater distance from the damage. My thoughts were that those fires would be difficult to put out and that a lot of people must be dead or in a great deal of danger and pain. But I again thought ahead, wondering how construction workers would repair the towers. Since skyscraper window washers’ jobs make me cringe, I could not imagine the difficult task crews would face in fixing this sort of structural damage.

I saw Heather, the 24-year-old Human Resources employee who was responsible for hiring me and Lynne as temporary secretaries at Stroock. She was in a daze, silent and unresponsive. I cannot remember what I said to her, but she did not acknowledge my words. I walked past her and began to get my bearings.

As I organized my thoughts, I remembered advice that Dad had given me in my adolescence. It was something along the lines of “if you stay away from trouble, you won’t get into any.” You can tell from Warren’s e-mail that he also gleaned that parental wisdom. Trouble was certainly at the World Trade Center complex, so safety meant getting [the hell] away from there. In other words, I knew Dad would be pissed if I was injured two hours after evacuating ’cause, like a dumbass, I’d hung around to watch the fire burn. I imagined a worse case scenario being that the buildings would topple over. Should that happen, I would want to be well clear of that distance. I would learn later, in one of the few positive aspects of the day, that the superstructure of each building was constructed so that a collapse would happen inward, bringing about a vertical fall. In fact, there was very little lateral movement to the debris as the buildings came down, which saved an untold number of lives. I began to walk. First to South Street, toward the Seaport and Pier 17, then north, in the direction of the Brooklyn Bridge. I called Lynne and Mom, both in Austin at the time. Because cell reception was poor, and would be virtually non-existent for several days to come, I had to dial each of their phone numbers several times. I eventually got through to them, though I cannot remember to whom first. I quickly told them that I was out of my building, headed home and not to worry if they did not hear from me for several hours. A 5-mile walk lay ahead and I did not know the most direct route home. On the morning of June 5, 2002, Marla forwarded me an e-mail that I had not previously seen. It is the message that Mom sent to the family after I called her upon evacuating 180 Maiden Lane:

Date: 9/11/01
Time: 10:12AM
Wiley’s email was sent after the first plane crashed into the . . . WTC. [He] left me a message after the 2nd one hit [and] he’s on his way home, walking, and will keep in touch. He will probably call Lynne throughout the day. Do not hesitate to check with her: 555-5555.
m

Lynne helped me figure out which mode of transportation would be best to take home. We reasoned back and forth between taking the subway and walking the Brooklyn Bridge (I did not have a bus map with me, but with traffic stopped it would not have been a viable option anyway). We decided that being underground was a bad idea and though being on an historic landmark was not much better, given the alternative it would have to do.

I did not know exactly how to get to the pedestrian entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge. Having only been there once before, my familiarity with that area was limited (I have since explored the area and walked across the bridge several times). I walked toward the base of the bridge, following the flow of people. A stranger and I exchanged some words regarding our plans and mutual confusion. He had to get to Queens and was determined to get there by foot. Hearing that someone else would walk that far gave me assurance that I would be okay. I walked on.

Traffic was non-existent on most streets (which were mostly shut down by now) as I approached the bridge and at a standstill on the roads still in operation. The exceptions to the car-free roadways were emergency vehicles, which sped frequently down the empty streets. I stopped to look at the towers several times during my walk to the bridge. Taking in that scene was absolutely surreal, becoming more so with each new perspective. The damage that at first did not seem so serious was growing more ominous. I reflected upon a conversation I had in 4th grade with Roman, Robbie, and Greg at the Guadalupe School in Salt Flat. It seemed to us that the United States was one of only a few countries in which its citizens felt that no one could attack them on their own soil (especially since the United States had been surprised at Pearl Harbor, which we had just studied). In our minds, the United States had established an impenetrable defense. “No warplane could ever bomb us again ’cause it would be shot down before it even got near the coast,” we reasoned. I contemplated the sad irony that on this day, the first air attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor, neither were these warplanes nor were we able to shoot them down. These attackers used our own commercial airliners as weapons against us. On a scale of historic deception this attack was of a Trojan Horse magnitude.

Crossing . . .

. . . the Brooklyn Bridge provides some of the best views of New York City. I turned around occasionally to take in the Manhattan skyline and gain some emotional and spatial perspective. Everyone was still surprisingly calm. Some wept, both men and women. Some looked angry. Most looked shocked. I was probably among the latter crowd. How, exactly, were we supposed to react to an event of this kind, the likes of which had never before happened?It was during one of my stops that I saw something fall. I cannot remember from which tower, I just saw something light-colored falling from above where the aircraft impacts had occurred. I hoped that it was some debris and not a person. However, on Monday, May 27, 2002 (more than eight months later) I watch the HBO special In Memoriam which showed footage of people jumping from the towers. After viewing those images, I knew what I had seen was someone who had leapt from an upper floor of one of the towers.

Earlier, just after evacuating 180 Maiden Lane, I heard someone say they had seen people jumping from the towers. At that time I must have been too focused on getting my own priorities set to comprehend the report. This short time later, though, I both comprehended and witnessed what I heard just minutes before.

Can you imagine? Can you even begin to fathom what someone must be going through? To endure or foresee yourself enduring so much pain that you choose a 100-story fall as a preferable alternative to your current situation? I thought about this as I walked on, over the Brooklyn Bridge. My fear turned to horror and then back to shock. Still, watching that person fall was only the second most horrifying this I saw that day.

About two-thirds of the way across, I heard a slight rumbling. I quickly turned and the towers seemed unchanged. But, as if in slow motion, Tower Two began to collapse. So many thoughts went through my mind as the tower fell that in retrospect it seems like it took ten minutes to come down. “Thousands of people are dying right before my eyes” was the foremost of those thoughts. Whether it was three, ten or more thousand would be learned later.

As the building sank, some of the throngs of walkers screamed. “Oh my God,” again a prevalent yell. Some people began to run, but only for a moment. Everyone soon realized that we were out of harm’s way–and helpless to do anything if it had been otherwise.

The wind was blowing lightly to the southeast, so Tower One was visible even after Tower Two’s collapse. The smoke and dust blew away from Tower One, over downtown Manhattan and out across the harbor . . .

. . . into Brooklyn.

The flood of pedestrian traffic crossing the bridge eventually poured out into the streets of Brooklyn. The buildings blocked my previously unobstructed view of Manhattan. Now visually freed from the disaster scene, I began to wonder exactly how to get home. Luckily, David and I had once jogged from Prospect Park to the bridge and back, so I at least vaguely knew where I was headed. I knew I could get home; it just might take a while.

As you walk away from the bridge, you approach the area where three of Brooklyn’s major thorough fares (Jay Street, Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue) come together. On a normal day this area confuses me a bit, but today it was completely overrun with pedestrians, emergency vehicles and commuters stopped in the middle of their daily travels. Sirens blared, horns honked, people scrambled, officials barked orders–all adding to my confusion.

I maneuvered through tis bridge spillway and began my walk through the taller buildings of downtown Brooklyn. Paying special attention to what was above me, I worried that another plane would hit yet another building or that something (anything) would fall on me. I wondered how long that feeling would stay with me. Hours? Years? At some point along the way, on the far side of downtown, I walked past a church. It did not seem quite like a church, but it was indeed a House of Worship. The signage was in Spanish. I walked in.

Beyond the foyer, the room opened up into what looked like an old theater-turned-sanctuary. A handful of parishioners sat in the first few pews and listened to the preacher’s words of hope (or in this case palabras de esperanza). I walked about one-third of the way up the center aisle and sat down in a pew. I listened to the preacher, understanding only some of what he said. It was unclear to me whether or not he was speaking about the World Trade Center. I only caught occasional words: esperanza, corazón, Díos, amor and Jesús–stock verbiage of most Christian sermons in any language. I sat, gathered my thoughts and prayed.

Knowing that my co-workers had been evacuated, I began to think about my friends. Everyone worked in Midtown with the exception of America’s then-boyfriend, Matthew. He worked in the New York Stock Exchange, two blocks from the World Trade Center. I prayed for him.

The walk home from the church provided some much-needed time for me to absorb what I had seen. It was also long enough for smoke and ash to drift over the East River into Brooklyn. Light flakes began to fall. They were substantial in size, like large snowflakes. I could not help but think of the scene in Schindler’s List in which the ash from the concentration camp ovens similarly fell like snow. It was eerie and sad but (and this selfishness, too, makes me feel a certain shame) also disgusting because I knew that some of the ash could be human remains. I pulled my shirt up enough to cover my nose and mouth and kept walking.

I had no idea what was transpiring around the rest of the country. The most in-depth report I had heard was Andrew’s announcement of the first crash. While walking through Brooklyn, though, I encountered a news source that was a phenomenon all its own: drivers of numerous cars pulled to the side of the road, their windows rolled down and radios turned up (I remember Mom and Dad saying that is same thing happened around them in Austin on the day of John F. Kennedy’s assassination).

Every business with a television or radio had the volume raised and, with the weather being so pleasant, their doors wide open. Since I wanted nothing more than to be home, I did not stop to listen to any significant portion of any single broadcast. So what I got instead was two or three sentences at different times from different reporters on different stations, each voice exhibiting the Doppler effect as I walked briskly by. “National air space is closed.” “Tower Two is down.” And sooner than I was prepared to hear, “Tower One has just fallen” and “both towers are gone.” It had gotten worse. More people died as I continued my long walk home.  I was thirsty. I stopped at a bodega and bought a soda. That helped, simple as it seems. Something to carry, something to do with my hands instead of unsuccessfully dialing everyone’s number in my cell phone’s address book.  There was much less activity as I passed 5th and 6th Avenues and headed south past Union and toward the lower numbered streets. I went on autopilot when I got to the Brooklyn street grid, where the numbered avenues run North/South and the numbered streets run East/West. A private school released its children to eager parents whose cars were lined up around the corner. Still, though more sporadically, people gathered around cars listening to radio reports. I stopped occasionally to get updates. Everyone willingly shared their open car door with passersby.

It was not until I was on 8th Avenue, just north of my old apartment, that the national magnitude of the problem was brought to my attention. A man on a stoop said (incorrectly, unbeknownst to me at the time) that “they got Philly, D.C., St. Louis and . . .” the one that really scared me “. . . somewhere in Texas.” I asked which Texas city and he replied that he was not sure.

I soon arrived at my former home, 817 8th Avenue, and rang both 4F and 4R. Rose, in 4R, answered the intercom and buzzed me in after I identified myself. I briefly told her about my trek and asked to use her phone to call to Texas. I made two quick calls, again to Lynne and Mom. With my loved ones informed of my safety, my whereabout, and plans to soon head home to 448 Prospect Avenue, I felt I could relax. Rose caught me up on the truth regarding the other hijackings and crashes. The airplane downed in the Pennsylvania field, though tragic, somehow seemed like good news compared to that of the Pentagon and what had just gone on in New York City. Not good news . . . just not as bad.

Rose knew where Matthew worked and shared my concern for him. Allaying our fears, he came up the stairs within twenty minutes of my arrival. We hugged. Neither of us wanted someone we knew to be dead. I thanked Rose and went into 4F with Matt. He called America because, unlike me, he was unable to get through via cell phone any earlier. He filled in America on his journey and let her know I was okay. After we related our stories and disbelief to one another I was ready to go . . .

. . . home.

I remained inside the apartment for the next three days. I did not venture outside, not even to take out the trash. I was worried about random acts of related violence–either terrorists committing more crimes or ignorant Americans harassing innocent “terrorist-looking” citizens. Even if I had felt safe, I still did not feel like leaving the apartment. I wanted to be alone to sort through my thoughts. I played NCAA 2001 on Playstation much of the time, reflecting on the events between snaps of the football.

Lynne and I had flown to Austin the weekend before for the wedding of Bojana and Jeff, as well as the Texas vs. North Carolina football game. I flew back on Monday, September 10 and Lynne was to return on Wednesday, September 12 (she stayed in Austin to wrap-up some post-wedding loose ends that remained from our May ceremony). So, due to airport closings and the massive task of rescheduling delayed flights, Lynne was not able to return to New York until the following Saturday, September 15.

Although it would have been comforting to be together in the days immediately following the attacks, it turned out to be a blessing-in-disguise that Lynne was not in the City on the 11th. At the time the planes hit, she would have been in the subway on her way to work. Assuming she was able to get out at our usual subway station (Broadway-Nassau/Fulton Street), she would have walked into a scene of evacuations and confusion. As unfamiliar as I was with the area, Lynne had only been in the city for four months, three of which were spent job-hunting from home. With cell phone service being unavailable and our being separated, an already stressful situation would have been much worse for us and our families had Lynne been in the City.

I recall telling Lynne and the family on the night of the 11th that I could not imagine going back to work at 180 Maiden Lane, or ascending thirty-nine flights in any building in New York City. Surprisingly, my fears had mostly subsided by Monday, September 17th, the day Stroock re-opened its downtown doors. Though it was not as difficult to return as I had imagined, it was still very strange to be in the area. Portions of downtown Manhattan remained shut down for weeks. Armed national guardsmen were posted at street corners and the streets were closed to all but emergency vehicles. Commuting resembled a trip through some sort of post-apocalyptic, militaristic Twilight Zone.

A unique, intense industrial smell permeated downtown for several months–a smell of fire unlike any of those we smelled while living in the Everglades. A fine, silt-like ash settled on everything and also hung in the air. We felt it in our throats every morning and every afternoon. In the following weeks, Lynne noticed that my breathing had become somewhat labored. It was not life-threatening, but significant enough that I went to the doctor and learned that I was once again suffering from asthma. This was the first sign of that disease since my family moved to Texas from South Florida when I was eight years old.

Since September 11 . . .

. . . the circulation of anthrax-tainted letters (Fall 2001), the crash in Queens of American flight 587 (November 12, 2001), and a chemical explosion in Chelsea (April 25, 2002) have kept the City on edge. On a larger scale, though, these events serve as stark examples that all is not well in these United States. We learned in September just how blessed we had been to live for so long in a country devoid of any measurable threat to its national security.

Lynne and I will move back to Texas before too long. In the days following September 11th, we even talked about Lynne not returning to New York at all. I could have packed up and moved to Texas as soon as we felt it was safe. Hell, Dad wanted to come get me the next day, leaving all our stuff behind to come get some other time. His was not a proposition entirely without merit, but Lynne and I felt that terrorists would not be our reason to leave New York City. We would leave, but only on our own terms.

This may be an odd and horribly coincidental postscript, but I think it is worth mentioning. Several weeks before the attacks, I was engaged in an eerily related conversation with Eric. We discussed the process of constructing the towers and their durability. Figuring that a skyscraper is not as durable as, say, an Egyptian pyramid, we wondered what would happen as these buildings approached the end of their intended lifespans. At that time, I posed a question asking how the towers would eventually come down. Would it be in a manner similar to their construction, one floor at a time, or would explosives be used as in a traditional demolition. I innocently and ignorantly uttered the words, “Can you imagine the demolition of those buildings? I hope that I’m still alive to see those buildings come down.” In the days following September 11th, Eric and I acknowledged to each other the awful coincidence that was this conversation.

At no time on September 11th was I in any real danger, nor did I sustain any injuries during my evacuation. For these reasons I am thankful. Compared to many, I have such a small burden to bear, merely carrying a mental picture (from a safe distance away) of this barbaric and cowardly attack. At the times when I feel as though I went through such a terrible ordeal, I turn any pain I have into thanks to God for keeping me, as well as those I love, safe from harm.

Acknowledgement

On Wednesday, August 14th, David assembled and bound this account into a book format. That night, after his first reading of it, and almost a year after 9/11, he brought to my attention an omission indicative of my state-of-mind that day. From the time that I saw Matthew until the moment I stepped into my own apartment, David was with me. He had run into Matthew downstairs, accompanied him upstairs, and then waited to walk home with me.

To this day, I can only vaguely envision David’s presence during that time period. My selective memory must have been related to my priorities: my own life and the safety of those in danger. Since Matthew was the only person I knew who could have been in danger, I must have seen him and then mentally “checked-off” his being alive. After that, I guess I zoned out until I was safe at home.

David will create seven copies of this booklet, one each for my parents, three siblings, in-laws, me and Lynne, and one for himself. Thanks, David.