I was in New York that day - 6 years ago. Early in the morning of 9-11, a colleague and I went to our first client meeting, fortunately mid-town. Half way into our meeting, the CEO finally joined us, but to announce that a plane had crashed into the WTC. We went to the windows to watch, suddenly witnessed the second plane crash and then saw the towers collapse. We went down on the street and people were starting to walk back from downtown; they looked like this man in the picture, covered in white dust. Police cars and firetrucks were flying up and down Park Avenue and Madison. People were shocked. It was eerie, unreal and deep sadness and despair were floating in the air...
That morning, because the phone lines were all down, it took me 2 hours before I could reach my wife and family to tell them I was OK. My daughter had a hard time believing I was alive as it was difficult for her to dissociate the World Trade Center from New York. 9-11 was a Tuesday and I couldn't make it back home to San Francisco until Saturday.
During the days stuck in New York my colleague and I watched TV, talked to people, drank and ate a lot. Maybe we ate so much because in front of all these deaths and such disaster, it felt good to be alive; still, it was a sick feeling to do so and - somehow - we felt so guilty...
In New York, on September 11, 2001, I also cried - for the first time in a long time.
