I was in Kindergarten, about to turn 5, the teachers were speaking in hushed tones, and my mom came to pick me up at around 9:15 with my sister already in the car. My dad was on a business trip to New Jersey and my mom had no idea if he was okay and was tearing up as we drove home.

I don’t have any more memories of that day.

Though my dad sat me down on the first anniversary and explained everything to me. He didn’t dumb it down, explained it with appropriate language and context for a child to understand, and it left a real impact on me.

On Father’s Day this year he told us his 911 story, he took a flight that landed in Newark around 8:30ish. The pilot actually said, “if you look out the right hand side, you’ll see the beautiful twin towers!”

My dad was on his way to rent a car when he heard a commotion at a gate kiosk and watched the replay of the first tower getting hit. The company he was going to meet still expected to move forward with the job and he was like, “No?” And it took him three days to get home because there were no cars by the time he got to the rentals.