10 Years Later...

It's been ten years since I was a junior in college, since my parents moved from Long Island to New Jersey. It's ten years since I got up and stopped in the Newhouse Cafe before Prof. Dubin's class for orange juice and a muffin and saw a group of people huddled around a television that was suspended from the ceiling. It was odd - the cafe was never crowded before a 9:30 AM class. I stopped and saw what they saw: a plane sticking out of the World Trade Center. I went into class, and Professor Dubin said that he was going to put on the news feed on the large screen in the auditorium. He did, and a few minutes later, the second plane hit. It was so unreal it was like watching a movie. I ran out of the auditorium with some others and pulled out the first cell phone I ever owned and tried to call my then-best friend, who went to college in the city. I couldn't get through.

Back in my room, I called my mother. I don't remember if I got through the first time or not, but I found out that my father's office in Philadelphia had been evacuated and he was on his way home. My mother felt alone; they were new in the neighborhood. She told me later that she felt out of place - that she should have been in New York on that day, at home on Long Island, not this new neighborhood where my family were strangers.

Classes weren't officially cancelled at SU, but they were held with varying degrees of attendance. I didn't want to sit in my room and wait for th phone to ring, couldn't sit glued to the tv and watch it over and over. I went to the classes that I had that were held. My Hebrew teacher was sad and listless - she was, after all, Israeli and from a place where attacks were all too common.I finally got a call from my dad when he was on his way home. He was ok and no one we directly knew was hurt. But out city was.

I remember calling my group of friends, my surrogate family and we all ate dinner together and comforted one another. We had a football game that got rescheduled for the next weekend and in band, we worked out a tribute show. I was lucky to have those friends together at that time and to be able to try to heal our shared pain together.