Eleven Years Since 9/11

9.1.01 I moved to New York City.  It was the city I swore up and down that I would never live in.  I didn’t like the lights, the hustle and bustle, and the crazy subway system that made no sense to me.   I’ve learned since “never say never” should really be my motto.   I ended up here because New York City happened to have the best masters degree program in my chosen field and I came knowing no one, hopeful I could finish up my program and get out. 

Ten days later I was student teaching in a school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and saw the horrible events unfolding on the television set of the teacher’s lounge.  As I walked up Broadway heading back to my tiny graduate school dorm room, I looked at all the stunned faces around me, people desperately trying to get in touch with someone who might have some information about what was going on.  I felt like I was in a daze.

In the days to come I remember seeing the faces of missing people everywhere, plastered on the walls of the subway, on school yard fences.  I remember the winds shifting north and the horrible burning stench of the wreckage blowing in my dorm room window, while I cried on the phone to my mom, begging her to give me the advice I wanted: “Leave.  Come home.”  But she didn’t and I stayed. 

Eleven years later I’m still here.  

Not long after that awful day, as we all tried to heal, I fell in love with this city and how everyone stuck together.   Eleven years later and some days I can’t imagine calling another city home.  I can’t imagine my children growing up anywhere else.  When I look around the playground and see the faces of all of their friends and neighbors, different colors, backgrounds, beliefs; I thank God for keeping me here.  I thank Him for every beautiful thing about this gritty, noisy, lovely place, and every person He has put in my path.  I thank Him for everything that makes New York City unique. 

I went jogging this morning on our waterfront promenade and looked out at Lower Manhattan, at the new tower rising into the sky.  The sky is blue and crisp and clear just like that day eleven years ago.  Unlike all of the pain and uncertainty I felt that day, today I can honestly say I would rather be in no other place!