Having been at Pzifer Corporate Headquarters on 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue early that morning, I saw the attacks from one of their penthouse conference rooms boasting floor to ceiling windows facing the majestic skyline straight downtown to the tip of the island.

I loved that view. Manhattan was my home. Most importantly, I grew up, (raised mainly by my grandparents) only a few short blocks of the Towers, sandwiched between Trinity Church to our west and Pier 17 to our east. I took my first unassisted steps as a toddler on the mall between those mammoth structures. Not a few months before the attack, I was Handfasted to my ex-husband on the harbor in a park directly outside the 5 story glass atrium named The Winter Garden, across the street from The World Trade Center.

We had chosen the spot for so many reasons but also because our weekly Vampire the Masquerade Larping group would be guaranteed attendance. Every Saturday night we played inside The Winter Garden under glass domes and palm trees or outside in the city with a perfect view of the neon lit Colgate Clock across the river in a place rumoured to be New Jersey.

For me, the Twin Towers with their surrounding complex were so much more than buildings. It was home.

Tonight I am tormented by the memories of that morning.

I had been couch surfing with my ex-husband at a friend's in Co-op City located in the New York City borough of The Bronx. I was slinging coffee and doing special projects on a long term temp assignment at Pfizer headquarters. As I waited for my 2 hour trek to Manhattan via bus, I remarked to a fellow commuter that the day was beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky that The New York Times on sooty newsprint would later call "crystalline blue".

Slightly over 2 hours later, I ran to my cubicle because my office phone was already ringing off the hook. The time was 8:50 a.m. Thinking it was my tough boss chastising me for being only 10 minutes early rather than her preferred work time of 24-hours-you-belong-to-me, I snatched up the receiver without looking at the number on the pale green display.

It was my father. I held my breath. He never called me at work. Actually, he never called me at all.

I listened as he explained that his crew of hood and duct cleaners had forgotten a major piece of equipment to clean the kitchens in the restaurant "Windows on the World" on the 106 & 107 floors of the North Tower. They were on the ground when the craft my father called a Cessna crashed into the 92nd and 93rd floor. They were all shaken but otherwise ok. "Go to work," he said.

After confirming that my grandparents would not be attending their dental appointment in the marble appointed basement connecting the North and South towers that featured a full upscale mall, offices and entrances to subways and trains, I went to work.

I was serving coffee facing the windows in the conference room and worrying about my friends and family downtown as smoke billowed from the North Tower. Inside the room, business must have gone on as usual but I have no idea now what was being discussed.

I must have cried out when I saw the second plane strike the South Tower. Certainly I cursed as my professionalism left me. It was surreal. It was impossible. I felt all eyes on me. Then the people whose backs were to those clear, bright windows turned all of their faces around to see the aftermath.

It wasn't real. It couldn't be. Two planes? On similar courses? No. Simply no.

My brain and body rebelled. I backed out the room and ran to the elevator bank slamming my fist into an already lit down arrow. The hallway was quickly filling up. I found myself at the back of the elevator car with my eyes glued to the fancy flat screens watching Pfizer branded Power Point Slides extolling the virtues of the company cafeteria as we slowly made our descent.

Too many floors later, I arrived at my desk. I tried calling my father's cell phone and couldn't get through after pressing the redial button so many times that my finger cramped.

I was so engrossed that I didn't notice my battle axe of a superior standing behind my chair. "Come to my office and take your project notes with you."

I complied, passing other temps and admins along the way, all doing what I had just tried to do. Reach someone. Find out anything.

Entering the Lion's Den, I sat across from her desperately attempting to explain that I needed to get downtown. My grandparents were there. My father was there. I had to leave. Now.

It was as if nothing had just happened. I was informed that being located across from the Israeli Consulate and a scant few blocks from the United Nations that we were "on lockdown anyway, you are currently earning a wage, this is company time, so do your job or tender your resignation."

The phone on her desk came to life loudly. I jumped at the sound. I was quickly waved out of her office. I hadn't had the chance to answer her ultimatum.

After that, my memory becomes a more nebulous thing. I know that by the time the South Tower collapsed, no one was doing their job. My co-workers stood staring at the television broadcasting the horrors city blocks below us. The disbelief was palpable.

Later I would learn that a close friend walked across the Brooklyn Bridge towards her home, covered head to toe in dust and tears. A police officer friend who was stationed downtown was late to work and missed the first responders call never stepping foot in either of the towers.

My grandfather called my mother to tell her that he could see people jumping from heights unimaginable from their terrace overlooking the Towers he had watched being built at a time when the only thing in the area was the Fulton Fish Market.

My grandmother told her that there were the ashes of souls on her railing. Should she collect them? What should she do? Who should she call?

My ex picked me up from work when we were allowed to leave the building. We walked uptown under a faint cloud of dust to his mother's apartment on 57th and 2nd with scores of other dazed office dwellers to the constant sounds of sirens. The filtered sunlight through the smoke added to the illusory feeling of everything happening around us.

All bridge crossings to and from Manhattan were blocked. The subways were shut down until late that evening. We arrived back in the Bronx at some point early that morning where I cried myself to sleep on a broken fold out couch.

I consider myself a Jewitch by faith. The Jewish New Year is a time for joy and also reflection of what was now past and what opportunities might lie ahead. That year was the saddest Rosh Hashanah I had ever experienced.

My Rabbi spoke from the pulpit saying, "This tragedy is as if Pharaoh in Egypt has slain our first born all over again for there is not a house without its dead."

Weeks later, I was still startled by the sound of emergency sirens. My friend who had trekked across the bridge that day saw my reaction and remarked, "People are still having babies in this city." Today, I use that phrase as a mantra against my hypervigilance at the sound of an ambulance or police car screaming by, lights flashing, sirens blaring.

Two weeks before 9/11/2001, I failed to land a job at a big name investment firm located in the North Tower. I was so upset at the time. Now, even with nightmares that continue to plague me, I know why and I am grateful beyond measure.