10 Years

Samual Barber - Adagio for Strings.

Leonard Slatkin Conducts the BBC Orchestra on September 15 2001 in honor of
those who lost their lives a few days prior.

I had the morning off work for a doctors appointment.

I had dropped my mother off at the Mississauga Convention Center

and was listening to the radio as I always did in the morning - Howard Stern.

About 10 minutes after dropping my mom off, it came on Stern that

a small plane had hit a building.

They were of course in New York so it was literally as it was

happening that they were talking about it on the air.

I still had an hour before my appointment so I went home.

As I turned on the TV, the 2nd plane hit.

It didn't seem real.

For a lack of a better explanation, at the time, it felt like I

was watching Die Hard.

I sat & watched the TV in horror.

I put a tape in my VCR & went to the doctor.

The waiting room had the TV on.

All eyes were glued to the screen and filled with tears.

As I got out of my appointment, the receptionist told

me about the Pentagon.

My thought was, "What'll be next?"

I went to work & sat at my desk

numb for the rest of the afternoon listening to the radio.

Upon return home, I watched both live TV (CNN)

and my tape that I'd put in earlier.

On CNN, they had anchor Aaron Brown sitting

on camera where you could see the towers in the background.

I kept seeing, what I thought was debris, falling from the North Tower.

They then announced that people, to get away from the heat, fire and certain

death, were jumping.

There are no words.

The one thing I remember clearly was how kind everyone

was to each other in the days that followed. 

No one was hurried, or irritated by red traffic lights.

People were courteous and thoughtful.

Life can change in a minute.