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Sad day here in NY. The TV and media is full of pictures and film and posts about "never forget". Having lost friends and loved ones on that tragic day (21 people from my town alone) - it is hard to relive.

One good friend became a single mom.

Another friend found out she was pregnant two weeks later with their 6th child.

Family members suffering illnesses having been exposed to the toxic chemicals.

One good friend who saved 30 lives by minutes by not entering the towers — only to watch them fall minutes later.

Friends running from their office buildings in fear for their lives.

People not knowing if their friends & family were alive.

I count my blessings my husband was out of the country at the time. He was in the 1993 bombing and was lucky to escape unhurt.

Count your blessings, give thanks, show forgiveness and radiate kindness when and where possible.

That was one of those days that is just seared into my consciousness. Actually as I write this it was almost to the minute when the second plane hit 22 years ago - I was on the phone with my mom when that happened and remember it like it was yesterday.

I have never forgotten and will never forget. Like you, it always makes me mindful of the brevity of life and how lucky we are to wake up and breathe oxygen every single day. I do all the time anyways, but will make it a point to sprinkle kindness today.

Take care of you 1W - you won't forget either so turn off the remembrances if it gets to be too much ok?

..watching it is still difficult, still brings the tears and disbelief of such utter madness in the world. Yes, ..count your blessings! smy

I remember going to my Organic Chem study hours. Just rolled out of bed, threw on clothes and ran out- about 15min to walk there, woke up with 20min before class. Barely brushed my teeth. On the main campus, usually it was pretty busy at 8:45am. The diag was a ghost town. I remember walking in to the building and seeing NO ONE. A few minutes of milling around and I ran into another kid who told me classes were cancelled, that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Completely out of the blue!

Totally baffled, I went back to my dorm where my roommate and I turned on the TV in time to watch the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower.

It was all so surreal. My uncle's secretary lost her husband who worked as a concierge at the observation deck. We were calling my aunt, uncle and cousins who all worked downtown trying to figure out where they were and whether or not they were ok.

So weird, I'd visited the WTC observation deck about a dozen times as a kid visiting my aunt and uncle in NYC. Last I was up there was just that June after I graduated high school with my aunt. A perfect blue day, low thin clouds floating slightly below the roof platform. Looked like an island in the sky.

It was a sock in the gut watching that plane hit. All those people, innocently flying to see relatives and do business. All those people, just trying to go to work and get their job done.

Still gives me shivers and makes me want to cry thinking about it.

I was a first responder on 9/11 assigned to Manhattan South. I spent a lot of time at Ground Zero on 9/11 and the weeks after. I have some family and friends who survived, and some who didn’t. I don’t really talk about that day or my experiences, but this time of year always feels heavy. I spend a lot of time in my thoughts. I gave a brief radio interview at an event on Saturday. I was blindsided and had no time to prepare. It threw me off balance for the rest of the day. I don’t remember the drive home, and I don’t know why I was stopped at a green traffic light in the left lane, or how long I was there.

22 years later, and it’s all just below the surface at any given time. It always surprises me.

I am reminded, however, how lucky I am to have air in my lungs. To be alive. So many innocent people were not given the opportunity to age these past 22 years. We are all blessed to be here, and it is our duty to never forget.

Be kind always, but especially today.

I was working in downtown Boston, making a cup of tea in anticipation of a 9 a.m. staff meeting. The TV in our breakroom announced that a "small plane" had hit one of the WTC towers. We started our meeting and about 20 minutes in, my boss, in a very soft voice (he could see the TV from his seat) announced "it was a 737 out of Boston." The meeting ended and we all huddled around the TV watching what was going on. It was announced that the company was closing for the day and we all needed to leave the city. Scary train ride home.

Never forget.

Cat

I don't think anyone was untouched by 9-11. I'm hundreds of miles away yet I lost a friend there. He was on the phone with his younger brother (also a friend of mine) until the very end. His younger brother was in Ontario filming a documentary and got the call from his brother, high up in the first tower. Younger brother of course could not get a flight so he managed to get into a taxi just inside New York by the Peace bridge and taxi took him all the way to NYC as he talked to his brother on the phone. They had time to say goodbye before the tower collapsed. I also had a lot of NYC friends working near the towers and they had to run when the huge ball of debris came down the streets.

9-11 will always been one of the darkest days in history for us.

Just an awful day. So many lives changed forever.

What I still do not understand is how those three buildings fell so quickly, basically at the speed of gravity, straight down through the path of greatest resistance?? I will never understand that,

Sick, but I was in materials science engineering program. We studied the collapse of the towers. Iron gets heated to 750C, changes its "internal grain structure" and weakens incredibly at that point. That’s how it collapsed. The towers collapsed layer upon layer just as they were designed to do. It is a marvel of engineering that they didn’t topple.

Can you imagine the incredible amount of extra devastation that would have been created had they collapsed in the neighboring buildings? A sick game of dominoes would have completely devastated power Manhattan.

What happened was by no means anything we can consider good. However, I am in awe of the architects and engineers who planned that building down to the very end where it could be demolished without affecting its neighbors to the point where the entire lower Manhattan would be destroyed. It’s one of the miracles of that day.

It’s weird but I see God at work in the honesty, integrity and care and professionalism of those designers and engineers. A horrible situation was not compounded by shoddy design, malpractice or carelessness. It inspired me to consider safety and quality as the top priority in all I do in my professional life.

…..no thanks

[This message edited by Nexther at 8:31 PM, Tuesday, September 12th]

I happen to be a person of faith. Christian.

But one thing I have always thought, even in childhood, is that Jesus was not the only "person" who gave up his life for others.

Firefighters, police, doctors, nurses, workers in the buildings helping others, etc., etc., etc.

So very many of them helped however they could, even giving their lives for others.

Thank you to ALL OF YOU who were a part of all of the help on that tragic day, and every other day.