My Recount of 9/11

Ten years ago today, I was an editorial assistant for Patuxent Publishing Company.

Before I arrived at the office around 8:30 a.m., I talked to the guy I was dating at the time. It was that morning that he told me he loved me for the first time. When you hear those words for the first time you are often in a euphoric state of mind, often described as floating on cloud now.

It was because of that state, that it didn't hit me when a reporter who was often known for exaggerating things, said that a plane hit one of the Twin Towers. With only a handful of reporters in the office, we turned on our one television in the newsroom and watched as the second tower was hit.

I don't remember much of the work day, except that everyone was working at a rapid pace to pull together information for our weekly publications that would hit doorsteps the next morning.

As the week went on, there were so many stories to tell and not enough people to write. I was then given the opportunity to write my first "real story." This wasn't just any story. This was a 9/11 story.

My assignment was to talk to a young man from Owings Mills, who worked in one of the towers and escaped. He was home with his family for the Jewish holiday. Due to the holiday and when our paper was sent to press, I had about three hours to do an interview and write the story. Thinking about that time frame now, no problem. But as I drove to his mother's house around 7 a.m. , I was beyond nervous. I didn't know how I could ever meet my deadline.

I sat in his mother's kitchen. As he shared his 9/11 experience, his mother and sister listened in. I feverishly took pages upon pages of notes. I wanted to capture every sentence, every word, in case his story would be too hard to retell again had I needed to ask him to repeat something. My notebook quickly filled up, my hand ached from my speed of writing, but I continued to listen and take notes, wanting to capture his experience and what it was like to escape the tower and survive a terrorist attack on the United States.

As he shared his story, he did not cry. His mother and sister did. His motivation to escape and live was his mother's birthday. Over and over again, he said he knew he could not die on his mother's birthday -- September 11.

Driving the 20 minutes back to the office, I began to write the story in my head. When I finally reached my desk, I already had the first few paragraphs crafted. The rest of the story flowed out of my notebook and onto my computer screen with no problem. The story was not perfect, but I did the best I could to retell that young man's experience. That day, I became a reporter.

I don't remember the survivor's name, where he worked or how many flights he had to run to evacuate the building. What I do remember is the one quote his sister said. Living in NY too, she heard about the plane crashes and went in search of her brother. In a phone booth, making a call to her mother, she all the sudden spotted her brother. Her quote went something like this "Out of the chaos and rubble, emerged my brother -- healthy, clean and safe." Every 9/11, I think of that quote. It still amazes me with all the people filling the streets of New York, somehow this brother and sister spotted each other and could make their way home that afternoon together.

I have written countless stories since that day. Very few fall into the category that I think about years after they were written. This is one of them. On every 9/11 to come, I will remember this story -- a son could not and would not die on his mother's birthday.