"We'll be on the other side of the bridge"

Thursday morning, Donna stayed home to help me get the children out the door and take me to an appointment in Flushing, NY, to meet the staff of Gay Parent Magazine. I was so excited! I couldn't wait to meet the team that has given me a voice beyond my blog and helped me achieve a life-long dream of being a published writer. So, I started to get annoyed with how out of character Donna was behaving.

I started to feel like she was peeing on my cornflakes (I recently heard a woman on Oprah use that expression and I've started shamelessly using it as my own). When I pressed her about why she was acting so strangely, she finally said, "I feel odd because we'll both be on the other side of the bridge." It suddenly made sense. We rarely do anything that will take us that far from the children because of the fear that still plagues our lives post 9-11.

Hunter was born on September 10th, 2001, and I was at home with my mother-in-law on September 11th, getting ready to go back to the hospital to continue falling in love with my little boy when the phone rang. My mother was on the other end, so frantic that she asked me where I was. I laughed and said, "Mama, you called me at home." She took a deep breath and said, "Haven't you seen the TV?" When I turned it on and video of the Twin Towers smoldering from the impact of the two planes that were used to kill thousands of American lives, I was devastated.

I was toying with going to work that day, but all thoughts of work left me once I was able to finally hold my little boy's hand the previous day. Then, I worked in the Flatiron District, which was only a mile or so away from Ground Zero. I tell Hunter whenever the topic comes up that he was my guardian angel and kept me out of Manhattan on that terrible day. That day, as soon as we knew it was an act of terrorism and not a freak accident, the tunnels and bridges connecting Manhattan to the rest of the boroughs and New Jersey were closed down. I still remember friends who lived in Brooklyn talk about the mass exodus of people walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.

I remember how frantic Skye's Godmother was that day because her son attended school in Manhattan. She had dropped him off earlier that morning and drove back to New Jersey minutes before the attacks. At the time, we rented from her, so we saw first-hand how frustrating it was to be separated from her son. She was blessed to have her sister living in Manhattan, so she went to bring her son home to say with her.

And my wife Donna, who finally realized her dream of becoming a mother, had her joy clouded with fear about the world we had just brought our son into. She was in the hospital bonding with Zach while news reports of 9-11 and images of the Towers were all around her. Those memories are never far from Donna's mind, so when we go to Manhattan, she calls Hunter's Godmother, who works here in New Jersey to let her know where we are, "just in case."

So, again, nearly ten years later, I found myself struggling with my resentment of the terror that struck this area on a day when I should have been basking in another moment of joy as a writer. 9-11  continues to cast as a shadow over precious, significant moments that should be enjoyed fully. Shortly after the attacks, I had decided that I would not let the terrorists change the way in which I lived my life; but realistically, all of us living in this area have changed. To honor the thousands that perished that day, I promise that part of my personal change will be to always remember the sacrifices they made so that I embrace and cherish the blessings I continue to enjoy even more fully.