Blue Skies

Many people have noted today that the weather here in NY is absolutely beautiful. The sky is a vivid blue, light breeze, tremendous sunshine. Exactly the weather 11 years ago. You couldn't help but think that, because that day started as beautiful as today.

I was sitting in my office on Long Island when the first plane hit . Thinking like most it was a small plane that somehow was just going to cause minor damage to such a large iconic building. I was speaking to my sister who was home watching TV news when the second plane hit, she hanging up right away to get in touch with my brother in law who thankfully left downtown NYC as soon as the first plane hit, from experience in the '93 bombing. Then our office crowded around a small black and white TV in my bosses office (a beloved man who passed away last year from cancer) as we watched the towers fall. All of us so stunned, shocked, and scared. Thinking of those we knew, those who knew firefighters and first responders heading into the city.

By noon we closed the office and everyone headed home. We had many closings in NYC city that day we cancelled. Real Estate and the economy were so strong then, but no one cared about closings for a while after that.

I remember driving home to my apartment in Northport, which was on the water in a harbor town, everything looked so pretty, but felt so wrong. The radio  reporting the events going on 50 miles away, it was surreal.

Months before,  a friend of my sisters had a corporate apartment in Battery Park City which was around the corner from the Twin Towers. I stayed there with my parents a few times and by myself with my dog Annabelle. We loved taking her for walks around the edge of the water, going to the Barnes and Noble and Century 21 at the Twin Towers and visiting the shops below. Going to bed you could see the Towers from the window, all lit up. It was exciting staying there. I just couldn't believe months later it was all just gone.

The TV never went off that day and night. Peter came over for dinner and we watched TV and spoke to family by phone all day, just to hear every one's voice.

Later in the week I would find out that brothers of friends of mine, a church Eucharistic minister, a college basketball star I knew and the brother of a co worker all died when the towers fell. No one I knew that well, but upon hearing and reading accounts of all the victims, it felt very close. So many Long Islanders, all with similar backgrounds, families, my age, just going to work one day and not coming home.

I can't believe it has been 11 years since that day. I have married, bought a house, two kids, and life just goes on. So much has happened since, and that is what I keep thinking about today. The people who perished that day, in NY, PA, at the Pentagon and those who are still sick and dying from Ground Zero, were just going to work, just one morning like today. So much taken away from them, so much more living they had to do. That is why when I see and hear, "Never Forget, 9/11", I don't.