The worst day of our lives

I know everyone was touched by Sept. 11, but as the anniversary approaches, I feel many emotions, like sadness, relief and shock. I feel relieved nothing else substantial has happened to our country. I remembered that in July of 2001 I was walking through the World Trade Center, shopping in the mall beneath it, walking through the Marriott around it.Most importantly, I am relieved my dad is still alive, and am reminded of how much that event touched each and every one of us. I had spent the night of Sept. 10 at my buddy Greg?s house in Farmer?s Branch because we were up late and I didn?t feel like driving back down to Park Cities. When I got back to my apartment about 8:30 in the morning, I hopped in the shower to get ready for my 9:30 Russian history class. I had no inkling my life was about to change.Sometime after the first plane hit, my mom called, crying, and said a sentence I will never forget: ?Sean, before I tell you to do this, your dad is in lower Manhattan somewhere, and we don?t know where he is. Turn on CNN.?As soon as I turned on the TV and saw what was happening, being the cynic I am, I knew it wasn?t an accident. Then, BAM, the second plane hit, I found out the Pentagon had been hit and I was in a state of shock.I hadn?t cried ? really cried ? since probably sometime around when my dad accidentally kicked a soccer ball into my face and knocked out my first tooth. I lost it.Being an only child, growing up it was Mom, Dad and me. Now, a third of what I had thought would be there my whole life could be gone.I called Professor Orlovsky to tell him I obviously wasn?t going to come to class until we heard something. I found out that he had a son living in lower Manhattan, but had heard from him and all was well. My girlfriend called me from school because she knew my dad was in New York. She and her mom helped me get through it later that day and week just by letting me come over and helping me get my mind off of it ? by giving me a place to be and people to talk to.I went to the history department to write a professor a note saying I wasn?t going to be there for the test that day. Professor Countryman saw me, obviously devastated at that point still not having heard anything about my dad, and just gave me someone to talk to for a minute so I could regain some sense of sanity. It was amazing to me that by 10:15 a.m., so much had already happened, and so many people had already been there for me to talk to.Greg and I drove to my parents? house in Coppell, listening to the radio, watching the TV when we got there and waiting. Finally, around 1 p.m., my dad called, from a phone line so fuzzy it was hard to understand who it was. I was still shaking.I remembered how he was my first soccer coach. How we would watch football every Sunday. How, when I was little, I used to hope that I would meet someone like he met my mom, and be so happy. I now remember just how happy I was to know he was still alive. I can see a difference in my dad now, how he just calls to see what?s going on with my life a lot more often now. I could see the pain in his face when he drove into the rental car area at DFW, having driven all the way home from New York. He was 12 blocks away by the time the towers fell. I can only imagine how it must have felt for kids, wives and husbands who had family members working in the World Trade Center.This event has changed our country so much. As I look back on it, I think about how scared I was, how everyone I talk to seems to know someone that was in either New York or Washington that day and how it still affects those people. I saw one of my old friends from high school the other day who lives right across the Potomac in Fairfax County, Va. He said they still have kits with food, clothes and anything else they might need in case something else happens in their cars.I see how it has touched everyone. It even caused my ex-girlfriend, who really didn?t like me anymore ? and with good reason too ? to e-mail me just to say that all the crap between us was silly and that we should be able to be friends. Now THAT is a powerful event.I want to thank everyone that was there for me, and offer my sympathies for anyone else that had to go through either uncertainty or loss. I know this will sound cliche by now, but I want to thank our real heroes one last time. I will always remember that horrible sight, how it touched us all and brought our country together.