Thank you so much for sharing your story, David.

I had, the day before, flown into JFK from Paris. I had been on tour with with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and had been abroad for several weeks. I supervised the off-loading of the BSO cargo on our charter flight, cleared it through customs, and hopped a car service to Newark for my flight to the holy city and Mom.

I remember, very clearly – as if it were yesterday, the view to the northwest from the window at my gate in Terminal C; the twin towers towering (They didn’t call them that for nothing.) over all the substantial, financial centers in lower Manhattan. They were, quite simply, beautiful.
My final glimpse of them came as my plane took off to the south, and, from my port-side window, with Sandy Hook directly below; they glistened beyond the Verrazano-Narrows, the setting sun to the starboard setting them ablaze in orange and red.   …in mandarin garnet…. As I said, they were beautiful.

The next morning I am in my mother’s kitchen having coffee and telling tales of Eastern Europe when the phone rang. It was my brother suggesting we turn on the tv. We did. There it was, the north tower billowing plumes of white smoke from a gaping, telling-shaped wound. Wide-eyed and slack-jawed, we watched. We watched as scores of firefighters enter the building and head up the stairs.  Into the building.  Up the stairs….  Man-oh-man.

The second plane hits the south tower and it is clear what is happening. Then, the jumpers. The Pentagon. The flight soon to be known as United 93. Then, the unthinkable occurs. I don’t think we spoke a word between us, my mother and I, as we watched the south tower plummet.

As I watched, I found myself thinking of Mike Brennan, Michael Lynch, Bill Mahoney, Jimmy Amato, Chris Santora, and the others, who allowed me to play, insisted that I play hockey with them on their team in the FDNY League. They bought my gear. (I had never owned a hockey stick before then.)  These games occurred at two or so in the morning.  We would go to the ice rink straight from the bar.  I was little, but I was fast.  You had to be if you played with these giant men.  I know they took it easy on me -gave me a break instead of breaking me in two. They looked after me on the ice, those boys, my buddies from Ladder 4, Engine 54, and Rescue 1.  I wasn’t killed in any of those hockey matches. I didn’t die on the ice.  I survived.

The north tower crumbles, its broadcast antenna, in slow motion, descends into the thick, black smoke and the nightmare of survival in the street is, once again, played out. The day lurches forward, revealing the nightmares upon nightmares from which I am yet to awaken.  I stay on my mobile.  I call everyone.  Everyone calls me.  We are all alright.  We are all wrong.

That evening, I am still in front of the television.  Mom has gone up to bed after crying in my arms.  The networks are showing us the world’s reaction to todays horrors.  I miss my girlfriend.  I need someones arms, myself.  I spoke with her earlier, but cannot get through this time.   I call my German friends, most of whom called me earlier. There is love between us. 

There is footage from London on tv.  Thousands of people have filled the square in front of the gates at Buckingham Palace, most holding Union Jacks or Stars and Stripes or both.  Mostly both.  A band of Royal Guards marches to the gate in their black bearskin hats and begin playing The Star Spangled Banner, a piece of music that, we learn, is not in their repertoire.  The camera scans the crowd.  My eyes catch a small boy straddling his father’s shoulders.  They are British. (you can just tell)  He is holding a hockey stick with the American flag tied to the blade.  He catches the cameraman’s attention, too, as the camera slowly zooms in to the boy’s face, his flag, then zooms out a bit to include the father who has tears streaming down his face.

I leaned forward in my chair, rested my elbows on my knees, put my face in my hands and wept.

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