Reply #49: Thanks, calimari

[NanceGreggs]

"For the most part it was - if you were strictly fixated on the pain and national agony of the event."

I guess I was fixated, and I don't think I was alone. The first thing on my mind that day -- no, the only thing -- was first responders going into buildings who never came out. Last minute phone calls to loved ones from people in the towers. People hanging on to the hope that some would still be found alive in the ruins. Strangers comforting each other on NYC streets. People jumping in cars in South Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, headed for New York to help where and when they could.

Volunteers being turned away, because there were already too many to keep organized. Blood donors being turned away, because the clinics were already overwhelmed with donors. Phone lines being jammed because people were calling from all over to ask how to donate money.

Maybe it's because I'm a New Yorker, and my family and friends were there, many of them personally caught-up in the tragedy. Maybe because that city was my home town. I don't know.

All I know is that it was like watching my own house burning to the ground with my kids still inside -- my LAST thought was how the fire started, or who was to blame. There was plenty of time for that tomorrow, or the next day - but not while the house was still ablaze.