I woke up this morning feeling like I had been punched in the stomach, like I do every 9/11 since 2001. On that day, I lost my close friend Karen Klitzman, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of the WTC. Karen was my closest friend in graduate school; she was smart, funny, loved good food and was a terrific tennis player. She spoke Chinese, lived in Macau for a time, and introduced me to my future husband. We lived in San Francisco when the planes hit the towers. My mother called us at 6am to turn on the news. I started checking the Cantor website just after 9:30, thinking they must be posting updates about their employees. I must have hit refresh hundreds of times, not conceiving the loss of life abounding. Friends called from all of the country to check in, to see if I heard from Karen. We soon gathered at our synagogue preschool as a community to talk to each other while the kids played. We needed to be with a community, and share in our collective grief. My son, who was born 2 months after the towers fell, is named in her memory (Chaim - she was Chaya). I feel bad sometimes, b/c while the pain of this day is still primal and fierce, my life continues to flourish. I still have her picture on my bulletin board, after I gave birth to my eldest daughter, she was in my hospital bed with me, cradling Maya.
I woke up this morning feeling like I had been punched in the stomach, like I do every 9/11 since 2001. On that day, I lost my close friend Karen Klitzman, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of the WTC. Karen was my closest friend in graduate school; she was smart, funny, loved good food and was a terrific tennis player. She spoke Chinese, lived in Macau for a time, and introduced me to my future husband. We lived in San Francisco when the planes hit the towers. My mother called us at 6am to turn on the news. I started checking the Cantor website just after 9:30, thinking they must be posting updates about their employees. I must have hit refresh hundreds of times, not conceiving the loss of life abounding. Friends called from all of the country to check in, to see if I heard from Karen. We soon gathered at our synagogue preschool as a community to talk to each other while the kids played. We needed to be with a community, and share in our collective grief. My son, who was born 2 months after the towers fell, is named in her memory (Chaim - she was Chaya). I feel bad sometimes, b/c while the pain of this day is still primal and fierce, my life continues to flourish. I still have her picture on my bulletin board, after I gave birth to my eldest daughter, she was in my hospital bed with me, cradling Maya.