Ten Years Later

Everyone has their 9/11 story -- where they were, how they felt. Here, in brief, is mine.

My uncle worked for the NY Port Authority in the North Tower. An engineer, he was the sort that was always punctual -- never, ever late for work.

So that day, not yet 12 years old, I watched his tower fall on TV in class as it happened. That same minute, the bell rang to switch classes ... I ran straight to guidance and stayed there for the rest of the day. I was sure he had died. It was too devastating for me to even consider survivors.

What I didn't learn until about 2 in the afternoon was that, for the first time ever, my uncle was late to work. He was helping my cousin move into her new classroom -- it was her first day as a teacher in Newark. When the planes hit, he was on the train into New York ... watched it all happen right out his window. He also survived the attacks in 1993, and got caught in that huge power outage a few years ago. Bribed one of the ferry workers to take him and some coworkers over to the Jersey side.

Why he got so lucky is still a mystery to us, but in the last ten years he's seen his daughters marry, become a grandfather 4 times over, and settled into retirement far away from the City.

For a few hours that day, I got a taste of the grief the victims' families still carry. One day was plenty for me.