Riding up the escalator was always a thrill, as I tightly held my Father’s hand. I would be dressed in my finest with my patent leather Mary Janes shining brightly having been polished the night before with a bit of petroleum jelly. Sometimes we would stop to get a pastry, and my Father would get the requisite coffee to start his day. We were off to a day at work in the World Trade Center, together.
We would then take the elevator to the floor which housed my Father’s office. An office with a window so high up, it took my breath away to look down to the ground. Years later, I would dine at Windows on the World and it would still largely affect me in that same way, awe and wonder would catch my breath in my chest as I looked out from my seat atop the world.
When we would head out for lunch, with my little girl innocence, I never recognized the magnitude of the place for what it was or what it signified. I could not grasp the grandness of the twin buildings as I tipped my head back and starred up into the sky, never being able to see to their very tops.
The New York skyline was one I had come to know intimately from the time I was a little girl, as my Father worked there all through my childhood and into my early 20s. My eyes always sought the towers as the city came into view. Sometimes, I would travel into see him at work. Or, as I grew old enough venture into New York City on my own I would see a show or have dinner with a date. The time came when he no longer held an office there. The World Trade Center, however, never stopped being my my touchstone, the monument to New York City, to this industrious nation and to the world that these great United States were invincible as they were able to create such grandiose twin buildings.
And, then it all changed, for me, for every American, for the world. On a clear morning, my childhood was taken from me, even though I had long been an adult.
As a child, we trust that we will always be safe. Always be secure. That our lives are untouchable. The soil we, as Americans live on, is indestructible. As an adult I had lived believing this same thing.
The skyline has changed forever. Not just that of New York City, but the skyline of my beliefs of life. I realize that every good-bye to those I hold close to my heart is and always should be followed by “I love you.” I know that this great country will rise up to support and care for one another in ways I had never deemed possible. I see good in people I had not previously know existed. The change in my vision of the landscape of my life is one I would never have or could have imagined.
I felt everything about those buildings were a part of my life – my past, my present, and my future. They still are and continue to be.
I miss you… my childhood vision, of safety, of security, of two twin buildings.