That Crystal Clear Day in September

I walked into Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn Heights and signed in.  It was 9:10 and primary day.  Joanie O'Brien told me a plane had flown into the World Trade Center.  I walked to my office on the maternity floor, looked out the windows that overlooked the NY harbor and saw another plane smash into the second tower.  Soon workers, doctors, nurses, techs, stood watching in horror as the towers fell.  We went into disaster mode and prepared the ER and the hospital to receive survivors.  There were no admissions, no survivors except for some first responders.  The next day hundreds of new Yorkers lined up in all communities to donate blood.  We were turned away after some time as there was no need for the blood.  We watched as thousands of beautiful photos were posted all over downtown asking if we'd seen these missing people.  Our brains were numb and could not accept that these were not missing persons.  Abe walked home to Brooklyn from St Luke's Hospital in Harlem.  Josh got home at night from the Bronx High School of Science and to this day I don't know how he worked that out.  Liz was in a brand new High School in Brooklyn and got driven home.  I stayed at the hospital assigned to the lobby to work with the family members of patients brought in.  No patients came.  A few thousand had already turned to the dust of ground zero.  I will always remember that crystal clear day in NYC.  It changed the world and our perceptions of our own place in it.