That day, I learned that the most important things in life can be taken in a blink of an eye, without my consent or a chance to negotiate. It was a brutal lesson to learn as a young boy, yet the greatest one of my life. Ever since my father died in the World Trade Center, my grief has ebbed and flowed, even 25 years after the terror attacks that claimed his life.
I was in seventh grade, in first period, when my friend Jeff approached me. He came into school late, after the first tower was struck. He knew my dad worked in the World Trade Center and told me that a plane flew into the building.
I went to the main office to call my mom, but they wouldn’t let me. We lived in a commuter town in New Jersey, and the school had a lot of students whose parents worked in the city; they couldn’t have a line of distraught kids trying to call home. My family kept me in school where I was safe while they were in survival mode, trying to figure out what had happened.
I vividly recall walking home and turning around the final bend to my house, where I saw a fleet of cars outside my home. That’s when I knew it was serious. Upon walking in, I forced myself toward the television.
When I saw the replays of the crashes, it felt like my heart exploded and my soul left my body. I burst into tears, and then everything went black. I’ve spent the rest of my life sorting out the rush my body felt that day.
My courageous mother was now a 44-year old widow. My sisters were now fatherless at 19 and 17 years old. And I, a late-blooming 12-year-old with no armpit hair, was clueless and frustrated, pushed into a world I didn't have the emotional vocabulary to explain.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
