I read a Tweet this morning that said it would be interesting to see people write about where they where, what they were doing, that morning 7 years ago. I agree, here's my story.
In the summer of 2001, I had recently moved to Boulder from Los Angeles, to the promise of a good job and a good life. Unfortunately, that job ended 6 weeks after I started, when the start-up for which I was working folded. I looked and looked for work after that, but in a new town, with no friends or contacts, I couldn't find anything. I was spending my days at home and making my boyfriend (now my husband) crazy. We ended up deciding that we needed a break, and I should go back to LA and work there. So I packed up my things, threw my cat in the car, and drove back to LA. I stayed with one of my closest friends, a lovely woman who had been my downstairs neighbor for years. She and I cooked together, drank wine, smoked cigs, watched movies, and arranged and then re-arranged her furniture over and over again.
It was in her guest room that I was sleeping on the morning of September 11, 2001. She came in to wake me, said "you have to come watch the news." We sat together on her narrow couch, not believing what we were seeing on the television. We had no idea what else was going on in New York (or elsewhere, for that matter), and we were terribly worried for her children, both in their 30s and living and working in NYC. We took turns trying to reach them and calling other members of our families, telling them to turn on CNN and tell us that we were imagining the news.
My ex-boyfriend worked for Cantor-Fitzgerald and died that morning. His body was never recovered, but he had phoned his wife and told her goodbye, when he knew he was not going to be able to get out. I didn't learn about his death until months later, I hadn't spoken to him in a couple of years. He was typical of many of the stories I've read about people who died that day: a husband and father to two little boys, a dutiful son to his loving parents, a brother and a friend and so much more. His death made that tragic day so much more awful for me, so much more personal.
Part of me feels that I should have felt it more deeply regardless of him, if for no other reason than all the other good souls who left that day. I have since learned of others that I knew who were killed - a boy from high school, a person I worked with on a project years ago, the parent of a friend. I tried to think of all of them today, and when my baby woke me this morning while it was still dark out, I laid in my bed for just a minute longer, and said a prayer.
