I was in the honeymoon part having been married three months earlier. I was driving my brand new car, a melon colored vw bug, to my job as an art teacher. It was a sunny morning, and the lake was marine and crisp blue. Those shiny new homes were extra glossy. Leaves had started to change to orange. Things were vivid.

I shifted into gear and started the curve up the plateau when the DJ interrupted the song to tell us something terrible had happened. He didn't have details. There was an accident in New York. One of the World Trade Center buildings had been hit by a plane. It was a terrible accident.

Wait folks... the second tower has been hit. By a different plane. It's awful to watch folks. Oh god.

We we will share information as we get it everybody. There's... oh god.

Ok. We are being told, yes it's hard to believe, that this is not an accident.

From the parking lot I called my parents in Pennsylvania. Mom was does that mean?

Honey we don't know. We just don't know yet. Are you ok? Where is Pat? Oh he's flying today? Oh god. Pam. Oh god. That's Aunt Marylin on the other line. Oh god. Laura's in New York. I'll call you back.

My students did not know. And when they found out they still did not know. They were born and raised on the west coast. They had never driven into New York City. They had never sat in the back seat and watched the towers get bigger and bigger on the skyline, telling you how much longer the drive would be without having to ask your parents in the front.

There were announcements on the overhead. There were tears with colleagues, confusion from students, and shock. Shock. Shock.

Shock. Pats flying today. was supposed to leave LA and come back to Seattle... major airports...should be in the air now.

A phone call for me. In the main office. Fear. Shock. Fear.

Pat's boss. Checking on you. Airports closed. Call us as soon as you hear from Patrick, ok?

A phone call for me. Back to the office. Panic.

It's me, Pat. Airports shut down. I'm driving home with some guys to Portland. We just have to rent a car. No I don't know the guys but we all just want to get home. Can you pick me up tomorrow night? In Portland.

Of course. Of course. Of course.

Calls everyday from home. Who else was lost. Who lost who. Who helped. Who needs help. No one will be the same.

How are you? It's different here, mom. It feels far away. Some of these people have never even been to New York.

I went to bed that first night, Pat safe, in a car with strangers driving up the coast. Laura, being met by her parents as soon as they can be there, her eyes and heart scarred for what she saw. All those tears that night. The pieces of my world had shifted, but none were lost. All those holes now... The east coast had so many missing pieces.

I remember thinking that someday I'd tell my kids that their dad and I were married before the wars.

I remember Jay Leno making a joke a few weeks later, Remember when all we had to worry about was whether or not Anne Heche was crazy?

Yellow can be a disgusting color.

American history grasped clumsily against a bright purple cast plastered from fingers to above my tiny elbow. I had broken my first bone just two days before. Using pain that had already past as an excuse to skip school and delay a history test I had neglected to prepare for.

I walk into my parents bedroom, their big bed an inviting place to spend the day "studying" like I had agreed too. My mom on the phone, back turned to the tv in the corner of the room.

A ten year old has no interest in the news, but it's still more interesting then trying to study. So I'm staring at the screen when the first breaking news scroll flashes. I'm not really interested, but I see the first video come on, the plane already wedged into the building like a toy. Something that couldn't be real.

I'm confused as my mom starts yelling, her hand covering a mouth in shock, still speaking into the phone grasped desperately to her ear.

I'm staring at the TV when the lady on screen starts yelling that there is another one. I see the plane flying so low. It's like a dream. A nightmare. To horrific for the mind of ten year old girl, safe in her parents bedroom, to understand. Who just minutes before thought her broken arm was the worst thing to happen.

The first taste that the world is not centered around her and her family.

Tears only come when the first tower starts to fall. Realization of such devastation bringing my small world into sharp focus.

The days that follow, I can't watch the replay without tears stinging. I had no personal connection, no family or friends, or even friends of friends who were connected. It felt that I had. This feeling of loss, this overwhelming feeling of devastation leaves me confused. I feel selfish. How dare I feel such loss when it wasn't me who lost anything? When I didn't lose a loved one? I feel like a fraud with each tear that stings the corner of my eyes.

This is a feeling that has never left. Each year I avoid memorial videos. I avoid stories of loss, and stories of miracles. If I don't, the tears come. Instinctively appearing with no effort. With them the guilt. The feeling that I don't deserve to shed these tears of loss.