The facts are easy.  I can share the facts without a problem.  Facts are simply what happened.  Emotionless events.

Watching the glass walls of the building vibrate like a wave until in their stillness they exploded.  The first plane hit.  Touching the partially burned scraps of office documents which were scattered across the pavement like a patchy carpet felt like touching any other paper.  We went to find a safe place.  My Birkenstock clad feet supporting my body as I walked and ran through the streets for hours.

The sounds of people; many crying.  One used a stick on a fence; that burst of machine gun-like sound intentionally playing on the frayed nerves of those within earshot.  A fishmonger went about his business as if two massive buildings were not burning in his direct line of sight.

I know the taste of the drink that I had at 12:30PM upon finally finding an open business and can feel how it burned slightly when it was going down.  The smell of a clean yet beer soaked bar.  Images of the morning’s carnage looped on the TV as I listened to a busy signal while trying to get in touch with my parents to let them know I was alive.

The vividness of the memory is intense even when it is visited as a calm observer.

I am grateful to be alive and for 8 years ago because I am a better person for having intimately experienced 9/11/01.