What I Remember

"A plane hit the World Trade Center." Said Linda, moments after picking up her phone. I remember thinking it must have been a small aircraft that hit the World Trade Center in Boston, after losing control leaving Logan Airport; only blocks away from my desk at Gillette World Headquarters in Southy. Linda Ananian's desk was directly across from mine, I looked up and knew I was wrong as soon as I made eye contact. "Turn on the radio," she said.

I don't remember if I realized it was a terrorist attack before or after the second plane hit, but I remember the sick feeling in my gut when it sunk in. "This wasn't an accident" I said, to nobody or anybody, I don't know. Maybe I just needed to convince myself that this was real. "It gets worse." said the voice on the radio when flight 77 hit the Pentagon. I had just enough time to process the fact that we were going to war.

I did my best to keep working. Later my father, whom I was working for at the time, came to find me in our office and with a somber look said, "They've got a TV upstairs." We made it there just before the South Tower collapsed. "That can't happen," my father said in disbelief.

all those people...

I told dad I couldn't stay in the city anymore, and made my way with the rest of the crowd to South Station. My cell phone rang a few times when news spread that they evacuated the Gillette offices at the Prudential Center, but I didn't feel like talking. I heard through other travelers that another plane came down in Pennsylvania and the North Tower collapsed. I couldn't speak, couldn't think, couldn't contribute. Me, a guy who can't shut up, had nothing to say. My head was in a cloud, this really happened: after the end of the Cold War, after a decade of relative worldwide prosperity and peace, after starting a family, buying a house and starting a new career, I was forced to come to terms with the very real possibility that things weren't going to keep getting better.

I knew that these events would have far reaching consequences: There would be an economic cost that would take years to recover. Culturally we were going to get a lot more paranoid. War. And there would be a toll in human lives so great that it would touch all of our lives, either directly or by proxy.

I was fortunate, I learned within hours that my cousin Cara, a resident of Manhattan at the time was safe, despite being in that part of town that day. It was a day or so before I learned that my friends Chris and Lyssa were okay. I hadn't really talked to them in years, but I was overwhelmed with relief to hear they were unharmed. Some of us weren't so lucky, Helen Zarba, on of my coworkers, lost her brother-in-law Christopher on Flight 93.

Driving home from the train station that day was a surreal experience: the radio had gone wall to wall with the coverage on every station with no music or commercials, the traffic was thin, drivers seemed to be deliberately keeping their distance from one another and nobody was speeding. The entire world was distracted. Collectively we all had to come to terms with what happened, work it into our minds and still try to live our lives. There are those not as profoundly affected as I was, and those that were more so, but the events of that day had consequences that would effect everyone.

I remained in that cloud the rest of the day, I called my wife, we talked for a bit and reassured each other that we were both alive. I drove to my infant son's daycare, and filled in his provider, Liz on what was happening. She had only heard a bit of the news since she couldn't have the TV or radio on with the kids around. I picked up my baby boy and hugged him, put him in the car and drove home. My car at the time had glass roof T-tops, at ten months old my son found the imagery passing overhead a delight, positioned as he was in his infant carrier. He giggled a few times and it lifted my heart. I pulled into my driveway, looked over at his innocent face, blissfully unaware of the days events, or of any other wrongness in the world, and just happy to see his daddy.

And I wept.