I was there that day.
I was lucky. I didn't lose a family member. I didn't work in the towers, I didn't have to run for my life, I wasn't physically harmed. But my office was a mere half-block from the WTC. I heard the screams, saw the bleeding people, felt the heat of the flames, smelled the burning jet fuel, wondered if that person jumping was someone I knew, or maybe this one ... or that one. I calculated how far I'd need to run if one of the towers toppled. The first one fell as I stumbled numbly into downtown Brooklyn. WHOOM. I'll never forget that sound. I thought they were bombing the city, whoever "they" were. I hugged a crying stranger on the street. I wrapped myself in blankets when I got home, spent hours shivering in shock. And I was one of the lucky ones.
In the end, I lost a co-worker and a classmate. One of my work friends lost her best friend and suffered a miscarriage from the stress. A major client lost most of their employees. My surviving co-workers each had their own traumatic story, some of them unspeakably horrific. Blood, glass, death, dust, destruction. The company brought in counselors. I wept every day for 6 months.
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