I remember very well where I was on September 10, 2001. I was in Newark International Airport, worried that my daughter Annie’s flight to Northern Ireland would be hijacked by terrorists.

I also remember – I’ll never forget – how, while driving home that evening, my wife Patty and I saw the Twin Towers for the last time, bathed in an unearthly glow.

Annie was in her early 20s then. I’ve always had difficulty saying goodbye to her and that night was no exception. I was in a melancholy mood. I remember, as we walked down the endless corridor to her departure gate, how I taunted myself with a dire thought: any one of these strangers could be waiting to hijack Annie’s plane, lurking like a panther in a midnight jungle, hungry to make our lives a misery.

 I tried to bury the thought but I couldn’t.

We finally said our sad goodbyes. There were tears – mostly my own. We watched as Annie disappeared from our sight.

When we went searching for the parking lot, we were surprised to discover a torrential rain had inundated the terminal’s ground floor. Since we were strangers to both New Jersey and to the airport, navigating our way home was difficult.

I was still anxious and tried to calm my fears by voicing them to Patty. Relying on what little I knew of air flight, I said we really only had three things to worry about – the take-off and the landing. And terrorists.

I think we both heard how absurd that last fear sounded. How long had it been since anyone hijacked a plane?

We found our way to the northbound lanes of New Jersey Turnpike in time to see the storm pass. The warm night air was had been rinsed of everything New Jersey. On our right, the lights of lower Manhattan loomed, dominated of course by the Twin Towers. Flecks of interior office lights girdled both buildings; the flashing red antennae on their respective crowns flashed with pinpoint clarity in the clean, clear light.

This was not an unusual sight for us. We felt no special connection to a pair of buildings that had never been visually striking for anything more than their height. 

But there was something remarkably different about the towers that evening. The air surrounding them appeared to be charged with an eerie green, almost phosphorescent  glow. It was as if the towers were caught in a cocoon, being subtly charged by the glow. We marveled at the sight, a strange combination of the natural and the man-made. Neither of us could imagine what was causing it.

We got home nearly two hours later. I crawled into bed for an uneasy night’s sleep.

Neither of us can tolerate radio or TV news in the morning. And this was such a gorgeous morning.

The phone rang. It was our son Grady. He demanded to know what flight Annie had been on.

I was still groggy with sleep. Grady was alert and insistent:

“What flight was Annie on? Was she on an American Airlines flight?”

I couldn’t fathom why he was asking, or why he was being so insistent.

“A plane has crashed into the Twin Towers.”

I envisioned a small Beechcraft hitting one of the towers.

“It was an American Airlines plane.”

Finally, I came sharply awake and I told him the one thing I knew, the one thing I knew he wanted to hear: Annie had not been on an American flight.

We both relaxed. I felt giddy with relief. But by now, Patty had turned on the radio. A neighbor approached with news that the towers had collapsed. The day’s unbelievable horrors had just begun to topple into our lives.

I know how I felt that day, and you can call me selfish if you want. About 3,000 people were murdered that day, every one of them as innocent as Annie. But for reasons I’ll never know, she escaped. On a day of national mourning, I rejoiced. The tears I shed after I said goodbye to Grady were tears of joy.

I don’t know what happened to the plane that was hijacked from Newark. I’ve never had the heart to investigate.

And I’ve never heard any one ever mention or explain what happened to the air around the towers on the last day of their existence.

Annie came home from Northern Ireland for a visit a day ago. She’s upstairs working her computer. I’m downstairs in my cave, putting the words to a story I feel oh so very grateful to be telling.

Today we’ll celebrate her academic accomplishments with a family gathering. We’ll kiss and eat and drink and tell tales on one another. Then on Sunday, we’ll head out to Grady’s home, where three uproarious little boys have taken root in the days since he asked his dreadful demand.

I feel sorrow for the families of those innocents who died nine years ago. I wish with all my heart that it hadn’t happened, that no one’s life had been made a misery, that everyone of those innocents could celebrate today, as I will, quietly and to myself, as a day when death passed by.

I wish they all could have had Annie’s luck, and mine.