Today, however, my mood has shifted out of the murky gray of mourning to vivid sky blue as I've reflected over the past day or two on the events of the intervening decade. So today, the day after it all plus ten years, I'm going to recount blessings rather than curses and losses. Most important of all, I begin with my brother-in-law, whom my sister would likely never have met had it not been for that dark day. On a grander scale, there was also the following:
1) Those New Yorkers who were thankfully NOT in harm's way, in Greenwich Village and points north, though on the day of the thing nobody knew that they were. In this number I include not only people, but such landmarks as the older skyscrapers that still grace the New York skyline (one worked on by my grandfather during its construction), such as the Empire State Building, the Chrysler building, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the circa 1920 Met Life building downtown, etc.
2) Those New Yorkers who WERE in harm's way, but had the good fortune to get to safety without injury. The father of a friend who managed to board the last ferry to Staten Island to sail that day comes to mind here, but there were innumerable others who walked to the outer boroughs, escaped in the "boatlift" to New Jersey & other locations, or stayed in midtown or Harlem locations until mass transit was operating again.
3) Friends (in the tri-state area and elsewhere) with whom we've since reconnected, in part as a direct result of that horrible day.
4) The joys of having had the victims/first responders who perished on this earth with their loved ones for as long as they WERE alive (too short a time, yes--but better those shortened times than never!).
May it never happen again anywhere in the world.
