honor the gift…

(I originally wrote the first part of this post on 9/10/06 on my other blog The Plus Size Diva)

It was a pleasant sunny morning. I remember thinking what a great end of summer day.

I arrived at work early, which I loved to do because it was always so quiet.

There was only one other person in my department and she was surfing the web and said to me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

I quickly logged on and with disbelief picked up the phone.

I used to work as an investment accountant at Carr Futures. Carr Futures had offices on the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center.

All I could think was… I know people there, I know people there!

No one answered the call that I placed to the Carr Futures offices across the street from my new office, which just happened to be in the Sears Tower.

Immediately of course it just appeared to be an accident.

Then, plane number two…tower number two.

This is not an accident.

I nearly fell to the floor.

I was instantly hoping that it was too early for most of them to be there.

I was also immediately hit with a subtle sense of regret.

On a recent visit to New York, I was supposed to visit the crew at the WTC and in my somewhat usual manner, I had procrastinated and ended up only phoning them but not actually making it over for a visit.

This was emotional devastation for me.

The sense of regret was no longer subtle.

It was all encompassing.

Because people were so on edge in the Sears Tower, fearing that it was a possible target, we were told to leave.

I went across the street to my old Carr Futures office and everyone was there, glued to the televisions and crying and just in a state of disbelief.

Especially when all you could see were plooms and plooms of smoke as tower one crumbled to the ground.

The only words I remember was my friend Lo Lo saying “they’re gone”.

69 Carr Futures employees died that day.

There really are no words to describe or explain how I felt after this.

It was something so primal and unimaginable.

Even now when I look at the pictures of the vitims, in particular the ones that I worked with, I still can not find any words to describe it.

Today, 10 years later my only wish for all of us is that because life is so fragile and unpredictable, that we live it to the fullest everyday.

That we make sure that the people we love know that we love them.

That we don’t hold back on going for the lives that we dream of.

That we honor life as the gift that it is…