Changed by 9/11: Laura Graney, Garden City Resident

On Sept. 11, 2001, I was on my way to work at New York University (NYU). I was on the LIRR when we all saw one of the Twin Towers on fire. Most of us were getting different reports about what happened – a small two-seater plane had accidentally flown too low and hit the building was the most popular.

My 20-year-old daughter, Lisa, worked in Tower 2. I couldn’t tell which of the towers was on fire. By the time we got to Penn Station I decided to go down to the World Trade Center to find out what was going on. I tried calling my daughter but she wasn’t answering her phone. I tried to get on the subway but there were no trains going downtown. I tried getting a cab but a driver said no cabs were allowed to go to the World Trade Center.

I began walking downtown. About halfway there, I saw two women crying outside of a deli. They told me one of the towers had collapsed and that there had been a terrorist attack.

A huge surge of fear took over me. I started to run towards the World Trade Center and got within two blocks of Tower 2 and it was gone. I kept trying to call my daughter but her phone wasn’t even ringing. This panicked me even further. I tried calling her roommate and she hadn’t heard from Lisa. I tried calling her best friend, Lora, but couldn’t get through.

Then Tower 1 began to crumble. Some started running and others, like me, froze in disbelief. I heard a police officer yell “RUN!” Someone pushed me and we started running in the opposite direction. Chunks were flying and soot was everywhere.

My sister called and asked me to leave the area. I refused to leave, hung up and asked the nearest police officer if anyone had gotten out of the towers alive. No one knew.

For the next five hours, I waited and paced and cried and panicked and prayed. A Daily News reporter stayed with me for several hours and took me to a bar that had a landline phone in the basement that few people knew about. I called my daughter and her roommate and her friends repeatedly. No one had heard from Lisa.

After several hours of making deals with God, I finally got in touch with Lisa’s roommate, who told me she heard from Lisa. I didn’t believe her. I got off the phone and was about to call Lisa again when my phone rang. It was my sister again telling me that she heard from Lisa. I didn’t believe her either. She repeated it and we both just started crying.

I made a ton of phone calls while I walked towards the 59th Street bridge. As I walked over the bridge with hundreds of other people, I saw African American men and and some Hispanic men on motorcycles and mopeds traveling mostly with older women, white women, on the seat behind them. On the other side of the bridge, a few Hassidic shops and Orthodox Jewish men were handing out water bottles.

I got home later in the evening but didn’t get to speak to Lisa until very late that night. We didn’t see each other for a few days because the trains weren’t running. When I did finally see her, she didn’t disclose everything she had been through. She was just happy to be alive. She did slowly, over time, tell me what had happened.

I still don’t know why 9/11 happened. I decided to go back to college and earn my Bachelor’s degree. Having been 12 credits away from that achievement for so long, I didn’t see the need to prolong it any further. My daughter also left her job, pursued a culinary degree in pastry arts with her best friend, and they both decided to take pay cuts to pursue a career that made them fulfilled and happy. I left my job at NYU, had two more children and decided to open a business with my daughter and her best friend.

I may never understand why 9/11 happened, but I do know that I will not waste my time in a career that doesn’t bring me joy; I will never forget the bravery of those construction workers who begged the police to allow them to risk their lives to help others; I will never forget how easy it was for us to band together to help each other – Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Jew, Christian…whatever; and I will never forget to cherish those around me that I love.