9/11 and the importance of loved ones, by Mandy Nagy

9/11 and the importance of loved ones, by Mandy Nagy

Last year on September 11 Mandy had a wonderful and moving post. Thanks to David for reminding me of it.

Here is the post, excerpted, click on the link for the full original post:

Remembering September 11th and the importance of loved ones and endurance

Posted by Mandy Nagy  Wednesday, September 11, 2013 at 9:30am

The morning of September 11th, 2001, I was sitting in my office at a prior job, admiring the beautiful blue sky outside my window, when my phone rang.

“I can’t reach your brother anymore. His phone cut off. He was running and his phone just died,” my mother cried on the other end.

For a moment, I had no idea why she was upset or what she was talking about.  But then another line rang and a friend’s voice, equally upset, screamed to me, “They’re flying planes into buildings where your brother is.”

I sat stunned for a minute, paralyzed with fear and dread.  I opened my office door and there was an eerie feeling in the air.  It was noisy, yet quiet and somber at the same time….

My brother worked for a Wall Street brokerage firm at the time, just steps away from the World Trade Center.  By now, my mom had explained to me that she’d been on the phone with him while he’d been running from his building.  He’d called her, absolutely frantic, trying to tell her that planes had hit the Twin Towers and he was trying to escape the area.  He was describing an absolutely horrific scene of destruction and death as my mom cried on the other end.  And then the phone went dead….

I drove straight to my mother’s house, where the whole family gathered and waited to hear from my brother again, not knowing if he was safe.  Every few minutes, the phone would ring and it would be a family member or friend, checking to see if he had made it out and home safely….

It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that we’d finally heard back from him.  He’d borrowed the phone of a stranger and was able to get the call through to let us know he’d made it across the Brooklyn Bridge by foot and could hitch a ride to an exit on a nearby highway, where I had later picked him up myself. 

We all spent the night together at my parents’ house, thankful to know that my brother was safe, but heartbroken about what our country was enduring.

My mother still has that stranger’s phone number written down and saved on a piece of paper.

September 11^th taught me the importance of family and loved ones in our lives, as well as the compassion of those we may not know, and that we can never, ever take life for granted….

Gulp.

I’ll be visiting Mandy on Tuesday. If there is any message you want me to convey to her, please leave it in the comment section of the original post reporting on her illness. I plan on reading the comments to her.

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