Remembering 9/11

A lot has happened in five years. Five years ago, the trade centers stood. And then they fell. I remember being unable to reach my mother that day, who lives in Manhattan and worked in Brooklyn. I reached my father by e-mail, whose loft boasted a picture window that looked on to the towers, where he suddenly had a first-row view of people stuck on the upper floors of the towers hurtling to their deaths.

New York is my adopted home, where my parents live, where my sister went to high school, and where my grandparents came to start their lives. My sister, a designer, and her collaborator Andi, created a a T-shirt design in 2001 to raise money for the 9/11 fund, which was showcased in Graphic Design. Today I think about the design, and the destruction of the towers, those inside, and of loss.