On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, I was newly married and newly pregnant living in a two-bedroom apartment in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn. My husband had just started law school the week before, and his class didn't start until later in the day. He woke up first and turned on the bedroom TV to NY1, the local cable-channel devoted to New York news, weather, and politics. The first Tower had already been hit (we're late sleepers), and I heard a frightened "Oh my God! A plane crashed into the World Trade Center," which woke me from a freaky pregnancy dream. From our West-facing, fifth-floor apartment, we could actually see the Towers burning from our windows. We spent the entire morning looking out our windows with binoculars and watching both of our TVs -- one on CNN and one on NY1. Our family and friends tried to reach us, most of them worried about my husband, because they didn't know where in Manhattan his law school was located. Everyone apparently knew better than to believe I, a pregnant, sleepyhead freelancer at the time, would be anywhere but bed that early in the morning. They were right. I was safe; I was home, and I had my husband there by my side.
Ten years later, I can recall nearly every detail about our morning. We watched the Towers fall simultnaeously with our own eyes and on the surrounding televisions. We wept for the tens of thousands we presumed dead. We thanked God that my husband's schedule started so late in the day he was still in bed with me when the terror began. I do not know what I would've done if he had been stuck in Manhattan that entire day, if we had been apart while our beloved City bled and burned. In my opinion, if you lived or worked in New York on Sept. 11, no matter where you came from or where you've moved since, you will forever be a true New Yorker. People say New Yorkers are rude and crude and couldn't care less about anyone but themselves, but that couldn't be further from the truth, and 9/11 proved just how heroic and selfless New Yorkers are; how proud we are of our glorious City.
I recently read the People magazine about the babies born to pregnant 9/11 widows, and I couldn't help but think of my own 9-year-old son, who was a 14-week-old fetus at the time. Those babies, who never met their fathers -- police officers, firefighters, financiers, maintenance workers, businessmen -- were a reminder to the world that hope and life remain even in the darkest of times.
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