CLAIRE W. 2003

Claire and I met freshman year at George Mason University in a French class. We were convinced we knew each other from some previous life. We took good care of each other during college—whenever either of us wanted to skip a Friday morning class the other would oblige and we would go to the pier in Old Town Alexandria and eat Ben & Jerry's.

This picture was taken at the Big Hunt in Dupont Circle on my birthday in 1999.

Claire had been married for a year when she wrote this piece on September 11, 2003. Her husband is someone she re-met on September 11, 2001.

Perhaps it's appropriate that today is the day I sit down to write about my experiences on 10 September 2001. Maybe it isn't….. I don't know.

Right or wrong, for some reason this day has evoked memories and emotions that, strangely enough, I was able to avoid a year ago.

Where was I on 10 September 2001 you have asked. I looked in an old diary to view the day….. it seems that I went to work, left early for a doctors appointment, and went home to pay bills and rest. Although it wasn't listed on my calendar, I can tell you for certain that I spent much of the day thinking about life and how lucky I was to be a living, breathing person going about my business. How, you might wonder, do I know that for a fact….. something so random as feeling an appreciation for life. Something like that from someone like me, not particularly introspective and certainly not religious. Well, here's how I know: On 10 September 2001 I was thirteen days past an almost month-long hospital stay, recovering from surgery and subsequently fighting (literally) for life because major blood clots had developed in my lungs. I was hearing, in my mind, the voice of the ER doctor stating that "it was lucky she got here when she did because one more day and that would have been it. She wouldn't have made it." Those are words that haunt you for a long, long time.

So, on Monday, 10 September 2001, I was living and thoroughly enjoying it. I was settled back into work, having just returned the previous week. I was also getting advice from a colleague as to the best way to find parking in the lot at the Pentagon, where it turned out, I was scheduled for a meeting the next morning. I didn't want to be late… luckily, I was.

This is what my life was like on 10 September 2001. I knew then how lucky, truly lucky, I was. It wasn't until the next day that I realized luck didn't even begin to describe it. Because I'm here, today, writing this story. Several of my colleagues, and many more than they, weren't fortunate enough to have my luck.