Happy Birthday

Today is my niece�s birthday. Today is a day for cake and cool presents and family. Yet she now shares today with a horrible event that will stand as our Kennedy assassination for the rest of our lives.

Where were you when you heard the news? I was at work, releasing student loan documents. In the three seconds it took to register what my boss was saying to me as she whisked by I had already logged onto chat and CNN to see what was what. It wasn�t good, and I don�t mean that in the general sense. I feared my friend, living at that time in Manhattan, was going to have a heart attack. Another friend was safely ensconced Inside the Mountain but no one, not even his closest family, would be able to contact him for another seven hours. The Fireman, at that time off active duty for medical reasons, had the task of driving his chief toward the buildings and they were only able to swerve into a parking garage at the last moment to avoid being buried in the suffocating dust and debris. There were others, and in chat we began systematically trying to get a bead on them. Time slowed to an interminable crawl for me (and I was 450 miles from this tragedy); I could only imagine what the real chaos was like.

Until I read Sarah�s account (http://www.tomatonation.com/thouart.shtml). Only then I did I grasp even the tiniest little bit what it was like for those who stood, stunned, in the eye of the storm. Only then did I feel the knot in the middle of my stomach begin to unfurl and the tears blur my vision.

Every year I read her entry. Every year I wonder what�s next.

Posted at 5:46 p.m.