a day to remember

It was around 7:35am when my hotel phone rang and my co-worker said turn on the TV now -- right as I sat up in bed and did as she said I saw the 2nd WTC tower fall. While I was living in NYC at the time, work brought me to LA for a TV shoot. And so by the time we woke up, most of the horror had already occurred and we were in a tizzy trying to catch up on the news.

I'll never how those first 15 minutes felt and specifically 3 horrifying moments:

OMG, what flight was my executive producer on as some of these planes were flying NY to LA direct -- I frantically checked my email to find that he was on a different flight. Still nerve racking that he was somewhere in the air and we had no idea if the flights were still being hijacked at this point. But I later learned he was grounded in KC and while completely freaked out, he was just fine.

Then I heard the news say a plane went down in PA and I hadn't heard where so I was a frantic mess trying to figure out where while calling my mom to finally reach her and she just broke down in tears. She spent the morning answering calls from friends and family trying to figure out how far I was from the scene and if I was OK -- they didn't know I was in LA for work. With my mom only having to imagine me being there in NYC that day, even though I would've been at work and far enough away, it was all still very traumatic for both of us.

And then as I heard more on the news and learned what floor the first plane hit, I recalled a good friend from college talking a few weeks prior about the power being out on her floor at work and how she hoped she didn't have to go down 90+ floors via the stairs. I then realized, she's above where the plane hit, oh no. It was early enough that I was still able to get through to her land line, and I'll never forget bracing myself for Beth to tell me that she hadn't heard from Stacey yet -- but low and behold, Stacey was late to work that day and even missed her standing 8:30am Tuesday meeting so by the time she got up from the subway the first plane had just hit. A woman grabbed Stacey who was in a state of shock as she realized her office was in flames and said we need to get out of here. Stacey got the last working subway north to return home to her upper east side apartment but unfortunately lost all but 1 of her team who did make it to work on time that day :(

It's hard to not feel like the luckiest person in the world to not only have been spared from the entire experience by being in LA but also having my 3 "close calls" all be OK as well. And that's why it's so incredibly important to never forget -- we were spared from the utter madness that occurred that day. And it is our duty to always remember and to ensure we make something of our lives as a result.

So I ask you this - what do you recall being grateful for 11 years ago when we thought our world was coming to an end? And what are you grateful for now, 11 years later?