Yes, 9/11 affected me.
Arriving on the last PATH train into the World Trade Center as the first jet hit, I witnessed the second jet’s impact and stayed to report. I still cannot bring myself to speak of some of what I saw. A block from the South Tower as it tilted, I ran, debris smashing the ground all around me, in the utter darkness of a man-made midnight. I emerged covered in the detritus of destruction, a gray statue in pulverized stone.
In the immediate aftermath, I was afflicted with a heart condition, atrial fibrillation, which I live with still. In the longer aftermath, I have had two cancers, a respiratory condition, and PTSD certified by the World Trade Center Health Program as related to 9/11. It affected my family in ways I leave to them to discuss or not; they are not public, like me.
Yes, 9/11 affected us, though we are fortunate next to our neighbors who lost loved ones and to the victims of the two wars that resulted.
Immediately afterward, I recorded my memories of the moment. On most every Jahrzeit of the event, I have written about my emotions, recalling, even delivering a sermon.
As this twentieth anniversary approached — a number that seems distant yet immediate — I have been struggling to understand my emotions and their meaning. And I find myself thinking not of 9/11 but of the other tragedies in…
