…we were driving to NYC down from New Hampshire…Po, Mitch and me. Landed at the World Trade Center at around 530PM, stood there in awe of the magnificence of these buildings. Walked through Towers 1 and 2, for an eventual meeting with Lehman Brothers at 6PM, September 10th, 2001, in Tower 5.
Interestingly enough, they had wanted to push back the meeting to 9AM the following morning, yet we already had a conference booked at the Grand Central Hyatt for renewal energy.
At approximately 10AM of September 11th,2001, Dr. Allan Barnett, CEO of Astropower was interrupted during his conference speech, as we were all made aware that two planes had crashed into the towers.
I doubt that there are many people in the western world who wouldn’t remember where they were when they got the news. I can tell you what row I was sitting at and which seat during that conference. We ran to the computer terminals and looked up CNN only to be amazed that all of this was happening just down the street. The cell phone lines were jammed and so nobody could be reached for about 30 minutes until finally one of us got through by email to let our Montreal families and colleagues know we were OK. Renee pulled the kids out of school, and I scrambled to ensure that all of our team were fine. Two of our salespeople, Dan and Les were in the air at the time, one over Pennsylvania. My heart stopped until I found out that his was NOT the plane that went into the Pentagon nor down into a field. I told them to stay put in a local hotel until further information came out.
One people’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist. Yet one truth remains…nothing good comes out of war, it comes out of peace. They say that sometimes you have to fight the war to get to the peace. I believe that the only true war we ever have is with ourselves, led to believe that others are the enemy. The only enemy I have is the one within me that would ever lead me to believe that I have a true enemy beyond.
I hope that tomorrow is not a celebration of one’s truth over another across our world, yet a remembrance of what happens when we believe that our truth is the ultimate one. Peace comes when we accept other people’s truths as being as valid as our own.
“It is the hallmark of any deep truth that its negation is also a deep truth”
— Niels Bohr
Peace out.
1 Comment
Beautifully said, Sass – being here in NYC, we were all affected and I apprecaite your call for peace. Amazing that your meeting place was changed, I’ve heard of others who had similar situations. We are blessed to be free and have the ability to voice our opinions and beliefs. May peace, acceptane, tolerance prevail! Your cousin, Lorca