Saturday, September 12, 2009

Remembering 9/11

I remember in 1994, traveling to the World Trade Center to meet with a Wall Street Journal reporter in my role as a communicator for Eli Lilly. We had coffee and bagels. We talked about clinical trials, off-label uses of various drugs I was trained to speak to, the weather ... and the building we were sitting in.

It was amazing. The Twin Towers. Heart of the Financial District. Thousands of people coming and going, creating a buzz with their words, their walking, their hurried rush to get somewhere important.

I love visiting New York. I loved seeing those towers up close and personal. They were awe-inspiring, and the thought of working in them always intrigued me after that sit-down with my reporter friend. I remember turning around to take a long, last look at them as my taxi pulled away and headed back to the conference I was attending.

Flash forward seven years. I was dropping off my daughter at day care to start my day of work in Champaign, Ill. The TV was tuned to NBC's Today Show. Surreal images flashed across the screen as I helped Zoe fix a glass of milk and sit down with the other kids at the kitchen table. I nearly dropped the milk carton.

I'll never forget the gut-wrenching feeling of standing there, jaw on the floor, in a state of disbelief, as I watched a tower burn, people run, panic ensue. I left...went home...tried to call Zoe's dad who lives in California and travels constantly, feeling like I needed to be sure he wasn't in NYC or on a plane that day. (He wasn't. He was watching it unfold on TV, too.)

Then the second plane hit the second tower. We all remember those images. I just sat down and cried. And flashed back to being in the lobby of one of those towers years prior, hoping that my reporter friend Elise was no where near Ground Zero that day. (She wasn't.)

It seems like a lifetime ago that the towers fell, but then again like only yesterday. So many innocent people died that day. And a city (and country) was forever changed. I was, too.