Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2001

I was still on the train to work yesterday when the first plane struck the World Trade Center, but I was most certainly in Midtown Manhattan at the time the second plane slammed into one of the towers--only I didn't see it or hear it. Maybe I was still walking through the train station. Or maybe it was when I popped into the 99¢ store nearby. I was early for work and had time to spare, though I wasn't paying attention to the minutes. And I definitely wasn't paying attention to the skyline.

As I walked down Sixth Avenue I finally looked up and saw the thick, black smoke coming from the World Trade Center. I thought there was a horrible fire.

I work just 45 blocks, or no more than 2.5 miles, from the World Trade Center. It was just far enough to feel safer inside the office. But the day's events seemed to get worse just as you thought the worst was over.

The reports kept coming in: Two passenger planes crashed into the Twin Towers. Then another passenger plane crashed into the Pentagon. Yet another plane went down just outside of Pittsburgh. Then a car bomb exploded outside the State Department building in Washington, D.C. How much more could happen? Yet it didn't end there. The Twin Towers collapsed, one by one, disappearing into themselves. And later, the building known as 7 World Trade Center also fell.

The world was shaken. But mostly America.

Every sight was so unreal. If catching a firsthand glimpse of one of the towers collapsing wasn't horrifying enough, seeing the videotape of that second plane hitting the Trade Center is something that will never be forgotten. And the reports of Palestinians cheering in the streets was sad and outright maddening.

I have to say I feel sorry for those children, full of such ignorant hate. They have no idea what they are cheering for. Their country is, their parents are, outright uncivilized that they could respond so inhumanely to the devastation.

The President and the entire nation seems to have set a tone of compassion for the victims, their families and emergency personnel--those working and those still missing. New Yorkers have forever been given the bad reputation of being unpleasant, yet all day long you heard reports of people in cars giving total strangers rides to safety, and five-hour waits--not just in New York but all over the country--at blood centers for people looking to donate. There's a strong feeling of unity out there. There's a feeling of good under the rubble.

This news continues to fill in details. We don't yet know how this country will respond to whoever is determined responsible. We brace ourselves for lists upon lists of people declared dead. We right now still hope and pray that more survivors can be found--from employees who worked in the buildings to firefighters and police officers trying to help them, to tourists and passersby and residents of the area.

Yet life does go on, and America remains strong. I don't think we've ever been a more united nation.

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