Facebook Pixel

Comment Reply

The 1970's: I was a university student in the Middle East and North Africa, circa Munich Olympiad 1972, plane hijackings, a bomb threat on a plane I was on, and the Beirut civil war. I lost friends in that war. Providence kept me safe.

1993: My DH was on a project in the North Tower of the WTC. After the bombing, his project was to move the client's data center (a former client of mine from my investment banking days) across the harbor to New Jersey. They were thinking ahead. I made a couple of trips out to Wall Street with him to visit old stomping grounds and friends, walk through the WTC concourse to the train station. We never got the time to go to my favorite place, the Hors d'Oeuvrie Lounge in the Windows on the World at the top of the WTC.

9/11/01: My DH had been back to the WTC and was due to be there, again, on 9/10; but his team was sent to California, first, at the last minute before heading to NYC. I was upset about my not being able to make a trip to the NYC home office of the company I was with at the time, just a few blocks from the WTC. All perspective changed, just as I was dropping my daughter off at school.

My sister in Seattle called me to see if I could have DH call her BIL - had to tell her DH was in CA, and no one could get through to NYC - her BIL's art studio was in one of the WTC towers. DH was on a round-robin call to check on his NY crew, and called me to let me know he and his team were grounded at the airport (they were supposed to be going to NYC). They didn't turn in their rental car, driving it home to Texas, instead. My company put out an alert to all of us to start our round robin of calls to check on our teams and said they were evacuating the building.

The Wall Street world is very tight. You meet people from all the big firms at a conference or event, or even at Harry's Bar. It's a world built on who you know and who knows you.

My sister's BIL was caught in the commuter train that was stopped on Brooklyn Bridge and he saw the second plane hit the South Tower. Word reached us about Cantor Fitzgerald, a few people from my DH's company and a family member of someone at my company.

DH and I haven't been back to NY. He keeps thinking about the apartment building he would have been leaving at Battery Park and how many times he walked through the WTC Concourse. He used to stop at a favorite shop to find a gift to bring home to me. He gets really quiet when someone mentions 9/11 and he thinks about how he had once stood beneath that radio tower to help test the signal to the new data center.

This is why I feel grateful above the sadness of loss of friends. Providence had a hand in keeping my DH safe that day.

September 10, 2008 - 5:36pm

Reply

Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.
By submitting this form, you agree to EmpowHER's terms of service and privacy policy