My Most Fateful Decision

I was supposed to be there.

Good friends from one of our distributors had invited me to attend a new product introduction at Quantum, a hard-drive manufacturer, at their offices on the 89th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center, starting at 8:30 am that morning. September 11, 2001.

As I emerged from the Midtown Tunnel I came to a corner. If I were going to attend the introduction event I would have to turn left. Instead, I decided to proceed straight ahead and go to my office because I just had too much work to do to “waste” the morning at a product introduction event.

But for that single decision in-the-moment I would not be here right now.

The friends who had invited me did make it out. We would later find out that one of them was pregnant at the time. Even though her daughter is now nineteen she still always refers to her as her “miracle baby.”

The other tells of the moment he emerged from the building running away as fast as he could. As he ran he looked to his left at another escapee also running away from the building until, suddenly, another person fell on him from above, killing him with the impact. That other person had made the awful choice between burning and falling and had jumped out a window dozens of stories above. It’s the look on my friend’s face when he tells the story that is most haunting. There will always be a special place in my heart for these two beloved friends.

I started to discover the true miracle of my decision when I walked into the lobby of my office building at 30th St. and Madison Ave. The lobby attendant, something of an oddball, told me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I chalked it up to another of his legendary conspiracy theories and took the elevator up to my office. When I walked in, everyone was trying to connect to any news source possible. Internet streaming news was much less typical back then but still available. We had a television in the conference room. Everyone seemed to be running everywhere.

The story became clear over the next few minutes. I made the odd decision to go back downstairs and walk around the corner to 29th St. and Fifth Avenue where I came upon many other people who had made the same decision. Fifth Avenue offers a remarkably unobstructed view of downtown and there in the distance were the two towers of the World Trade Center. They were both on fire and billowing smoke.

I soon realized that my mouth was open. I was slack-jawed, a term which gained new meaning for me at that very moment. I looked around to find that literally every other person standing there was facing south with the exact same look on their faces. We all appeared as one. Shocked. Unable to move.

How could we be under attack? In New York!! How was this possible… and what did it mean?

I did not stay there long enough to watch the horrible collapse of the towers live. Instead I returned to my office and began trying to hunt for friends who were there. Though I didn’t know it at the time, my son Josh was doing the same from 2,500 miles away at ASU, feeling totally isolated and helpless. I was grateful for the distance.

In the late afternoon another friend reached me by phone to tell me that he had just driven through the Midtown Tunnel, and it was now open and accessible. We had gotten everyone else out of the office and sent them home. I now ran down to the parking garage and headed for the tunnel.

As I emerged from the tunnel on the Queens side I had my first clear view of what would later be called “ground zero.” Enormous billowing clouds of grey, brown, and black smoke. I shook.

Not long after we moved our offices to 115 Broadway. The window to my office faced directly into ground zero. Each day I saw people working the pile, looking for body parts. I watched the cleanup. Saw the buildings occupied by many of my clients still with gaping holes in their sides. All too often I found myself staring out that window trying to make sense of the incomprehensible.

Twenty years have passed, but the fear has never faded. In fact, it has only grown more profound. One would have hoped we as a people would have drawn together to protect each other. Instead, we have turned on each other. In the context of all the friends we lost to a faceless foreign enemy it is nothing short of disgusting today to think about the open antagonism in our politics and our country. So pointless. And seen through the prism of this day perhaps coming again, so very dangerous.

My friends, it is not enough just to remember this day, to never forget. What the world and our country need is for all of us to honor this day and those we lost by letting it motivate us to do better. To put aside our differences and realize we are all the same. People of every race, creed, color, and from 93 countries around the world lost their lives that day. Let’s draw together to find strength to save our world.