12 years ago this morning, I was getting ready for work like any normal day. I turned on Fox News, like any normal day. But it was not any normal day. A plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center buildings, where I had been just a few months before making a late night visit to the Duane Reade in the basement for some forgotten toiletries on my business trip for eFax.
The person I lived with at the time sat there in utter shock at what we were seeing, and both of us flinched when the second plane came in and crashed. I knew immediately that it was a major terrorist attack. Reports began coming in that additional planes were suspected to be bound for Los Angeles. I called in to the office and told them I wasn’t coming in. Later that morning as events unfolded management officially closed for the day. I called my mom in Arkansas, and she told me that my nephew was in New York. I didn’t find out until a little later that he was standing under the twin towers when the first plane hit, waiting to take the tour on the observation deck.
Things could have turned out horribly tragically for my family that day. I’m very glad they didn’t. Still, we all have to remember the people that were affected: business travelers on the planes, people going back home, the firemen and police that tried to save people in the towers, the servicemen and woman at the Pentagon, and all the families that had losses that day.
Lest not we forget.