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9-11-2001 in 2026

Today is a day of reverence and remembrance. Twenty-five years ago today we all experienced what may be the most memorable, tragic day in our lives.  Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives that day, and several more suffered as a consequence of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  My words are inadequate and insufficient to describe what happened that day, and the ensuing weeks.  Pandemonium and chaos come close, but we have a classmate who experienced first-hand the chaos and confusion of that day, Cathy Avery St. Jean.  She has written a poem about the experience, and agreed to let me share it with our classmates.  In her own words...

 

My 9/11
     by Catherine Avery St. Jean

It was a nightmare that arrived out of the most perfect blue sky.

That morning, like every morning,
the 8:00 ferry carried me from
Staten Island to Manhattan,
toward an ordinary Tuesday.

The sky was so clear, so crisp,
so impossibly blue,
I thought it must be
an omen for a perfect day.

I stepped off the ferry at 8:25 and walked toward the #4 train at Bowling Green.
Before going underground,
I looked up.
round the North Tower were white clouds
and what seemed like
birds circling its crown.

Strange, I thought.
The clock read 8:48.
I did not know a plane
had already struck the other side.

By the time I reached my office,
the South Tower was burning.
My staff was relieved to see me.

We watched in horror on the television
as the South Tower fell.
Then the North.
And Manhattan unraveled.

Subways stopped.
Cell phones went silent.
We were told to evacuate.

At Grand Central on Second Avenue,
I traded my three-inch heels
for walking shoes.

Women all around me did the same,
leaving beautiful shoes behind as if even ordinary life had suddenly become useless.

I walked south toward the ferry.
At Canal Street,
the towers were gone.
People covered in gray ash walked north in silence, dazed, hollow-eyed, like ghosts.

A policeman sent me east to the closed FDR.
I walked alone through inches of ash, breathing a smell I had never known before and have never forgotten.
At last, I reached the ferry.
Three thousand of us boarded,
life jackets on, escorted across the harbor
by armed Coast Guard zodiacs.

I stayed on the lower deck, on the Manhattan side.
Behind us,
the city burned.

Smoke rose into
that same perfect blue sky
I had admired that morning. And I cried.
Twenty-five years later,
I can still smell the ash.

I can still see
those gray, silent faces.

                 

2026 Classmates' Passings

2025 Classmates' Passings

Classmates' Condolences to...

 

August 20, 2026