My father told me this story once, one one of the days when I realized that my father’s advice was very good, rooted in experience, and given with an intent to help me to go higher and farther in the world.

“In the morning of 9/11, I was planning to stop by the Border bookstore in 5 World Trade Center to get a few parenting books before going to work. I didn’t. I took the Holland Tunnel to work instead. At some point during my commute through New Jersey, the Twin Towers were hit, but I didn’t see any of it. I remember never looking in the rearview mirror that day–if I did, I might not be here today. If I stopped by that bookstore then, I might not be here today.”

As for me, my memories of that 9/11 were:

• no cell phone service (my first-grade TA was trying to call all of our parents and failing)
• waiting at school for an interminable amount of time for my mom to pick me up
• seeing the events unfold on the old, 13″, black-and-white TV in my mom’s office and wondering “did anything happen to Dad”
• I don’t even know how I got home; I remember Mom saying “people are walking over the bridges”