11 years - We will never forget

I can't believe it's 11 years. I can remember 9/11/01 so clearly. I was in class at Molloy. The class was in the basement and I had been at school for a while having had a class before that one. A woman came in and said she heard a report on the radio that a plane hit the World Trade Center. My first thought was "how do you hit a freakin building?" But I was thinking it was a small plane. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be a commercial airliner.

Class ended and as we made our way upstairs there was a tv in the fishbowl (the room was a lounge with the majority of the walls being glass) People were standing around watching. I caught a glimpse of the picture on the tv. There was smoke pouring out of the building. This was no small plane crash. I went inside the room and I remember staring at the screen trying to figure out what angle they were looking at the building. I couldn't see the other tower. Just as that thought crossed my mind the second tower collapsed.

I stood there in disbelief. My thoughts were all over the place. I remember a girl in the room screaming as the tower went down. Her dad worked in the tower. She just kept yelling for him. Then all of a sudden it hit me. My dad works down there. He was there for the '93 bombings and now he was there for this. I can remember saying something to one of my professors about my dad and then I left to go home.

The drive home was surreal. I don't really remember much of it. I wasn't paying attention really. There weren't many cars on the road and I can remember looking at the sky and not seeing any planes. Living only miles from JFK airport you could almost always look up and see one.

I got home and turned on the tv. I checked the answering machine. There was a message from my dad. He was getting out of there. It was hours before we heard anything else about where he was.

We got a call later that day. He made it home safe and sound.

As the days passed we learned of people who didn't make it home. Three firefighters from our town and others who worked in the towers.

I thought a lot about the girl in the fishbowl and wondered if she was as lucky as we were. My dad made it home.