If you had asked me when I woke up 25 years ago this morning, then I would have told you I was the happiest I had ever been in my three decades on Earth. I was where I wanted to be, with who I wanted to be with, doing what I wanted to do.
That clear blue sky outside my window in the New York suburbs that morning? That’s how I felt inside, too.
Amazing how things can change in an instant.
I’m thinking of all the nearly 3,000 men and women who were killed on 9/11. Most would still be alive today, if it wasn’t for what happened.
One of the lessons from that day was how interconnected we all were. New York City and the region, it’s vast. But it took 9/11 to understand how small it was too. I doubt there’s a person who didn’t lose someone they knew, someone they grew up with, a fellow parent or commuter or neighbor in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey. I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t one or two degrees of separation away.
The toll continues to rise, even after all these years. Another 3,000 or more people have died, and thousands more sick, not from the injuries on 9/11 but from being there and helping out at the World Trade Center in the days and weeks afterward.
This morning, I am doing what I have done every 9/11 since 2002, listening to the memorial service from lower Manhattan and waiting for one particular name.
And saying a prayer for him, for all of them.
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