Meaning: I was in NYC (on business), scheduled to head home on that day. but I was in a hotel midtown, far from the on-the-ground horror.

Obviously, I didn’t head home that day. I stayed in NY four more days before taking a pre-dawn several-hour cab ride to Philadelphia to make my cross-country journey home. I experienced lots of little things…and a few years later, I wrote them out, moving from oral history to written record, so I would truly #neverforget.

Every year, I share my story, just one average person’s story, as my memorial to what was lost that day and the days that followed. [Click on each date to read the corresponding story, still living over on my old Substack.]

09/10/01: 25 years ago that day I was thinking, “this is the best trip I’ve had to NYC in a while.” My mom grew up in NYC, and I had lived there for four years after college, but the years of visiting during the 90s were marked by the decline of my grandmother, spending more and more time with her, and less and less time with friends and doing “fun stuff.” My business trip in September 2001 was my first visit back to NY post her passing. I came in the weekend ahead and had a wonderful time with friends and theatre and other family members.

09/11/01: 25 years ago today my bag was packed and sitting on my hotel bed…where it stayed for four more days. I was meant to leave from LaGuardia direct to San Jose, and I had an upgrade, and I was ready to go home. And yes, the sky was so so beautiful that day.

09/12/01: 25 years ago that day I was one of many turned away at the blood donor station, and on my walk to the closest hospital to my hotel, I heard a cat’s meow and saw one sitting in a window on a high floor of an apartment building as I passed. My imagination ran away with me, and thinking of that cat has haunted me ever since. This is the one part of the story of those days that I could not tell without choking up.

09/13/01: 25 years ago that day I was starting to get starved for human contact. Oddly enough, I could call home to California all day long, but had trouble reaching any of my NY friends and family. Sitting in a hotel room watching people share their flyers of their missing loved ones was my main activity. A true sense of helplessness.

09/15/01: 25 years ago that day: Escape from New York. Until the last minute, it was unclear if I was going to get a flight and get on that flight.

25 years later this anniversary has been hitting me harder than usual. Thank you for remembering with me. And please share your story if so moved.

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