Always Remember

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, I was getting ready for work in my apartment on East 12th Street in Manhattan, admiring how beautiful the weather was when I heard a loud whoosh.  Minutes later, the local news interrupted Good Morning America to announce that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  The images, smells, noises and experiences from that rest of that day - and from the rest of that week, really - will be forever seared into my brain.  

Plenty of them revolve around horror and fear but the biggest thing that struck me on that day was the sense of unity among the people of New York.  Strangers helped strangers, neighbors who'd never met sat together and prayed, and countless men and women put themselves in harm's way to help in any way they could.  While the terror of the day will always stay with me, it's the togetherness I choose to remember.