{"id":32,"date":"2003-09-11T21:02:00","date_gmt":"2003-09-11T21:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/Miscellany\/Personal\/remember.html"},"modified":"2006-09-19T10:58:27","modified_gmt":"2006-09-19T14:58:27","slug":"remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/2003\/09\/11\/remember\/","title":{"rendered":"I Remember"},"content":{"rendered":"

I remember my pager going off during a meeting. “CALL HOME ASAP.<\/span>” My wife never pages me. I left the meeting. It was a little past 9am.<\/p>\n

I remember finding an empty office and calling home. I was in Manhattan only for the day, 52nd Street. My wife was upset. “Two planes just crashed into the World Trade Center. Are you there?” We live two hours away – she didn’t know anything about New York City, just that I was there. “I’m five miles away, hon. I’m fine.”<\/p>\n

I remember getting off the phone after several minutes of assuring my wife I’d find out how to get home and call her back. The meeting was still in progress.<\/p>\n

I remember wondering how I could go tell a room full of New Yorkers what had happened. I remember my relief when a moment later, the meeting room opened up and everyone poured out. Someone else had already told them.<\/p>\n

I remember wandering down a few floors, looking for a television. I passed someone I didn’t know. “They blew up the Pentagon,” he said. My stomach turned to ice. How far would this go?<\/p>\n

I remember talking to my wife again. I had to call someone back in my office, over a dedicated line, and get him to conference us. Long distance and cell phones were completely tied up. “I promise I’ll try to get home today,” I told her. She was trying not to be hysterical. So was I.<\/p>\n

I remember leaving the building with four other people from my office, all visiting for the day. Someone had come up over the weekend, and had a car parked in Brooklyn. The 3:30 streets were empty. Subways, the ones that were running, were nearly empty. We walked a long time, away from the smoke. I looked over my shoulder at it so many times I lost count.<\/p>\n

I remember riding out of Brooklyn over the Verazanno Narrows bridge several hours later. Looking back at the column of smoke, larger than belief. I will never forget that image as long as I live.<\/p>\n

I remember arriving home. Hugging my children. Holding my wife. Calling friends and loved ones, assuring them I was home. Crying. Praying for the families of those who were lost.<\/p>\n

On September 11, 2001, over three thousand people lost their lives. At the World Trade 2,972 people were lost. At the Pentagon, 184 people were lost. In a field in Pennsylvania, 40 people were lost. I was fortunate… I didn’t lose anyone. But I remember.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember my pager going off during a meeting. “CALL HOME ASAP.” My wife never pages me. I left the meeting. It was a little past 9am. I remember finding an empty office and calling home. I was in Manhattan only for the day, 52nd Street. My wife was upset. “Two planes just crashed into […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jclark.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}