Thoughts on September 11
What I Wrote in 2010, and What I Think Now
I am a 9/11 survivor.
Every year for the past twenty-five years, my mom has called to remind me what that day was like for her. The part that always makes me smile is the story of my dad's dream. A few days before 9/11, he dreamed that I had died, and he feared the worst. My very Catholic mother somehow found reassurance in it: "That means he's going to make it. If you dreamed he died, he'll be okay."
If you are wondering whether that is a Haitian thing — the question my son Xavier used to ask his mother and me whenever we told him he couldn't do something — I have never heard of it anywhere else. I call it Mom logic. She needed something to hold on to, and she found it.
Sixteen years ago I wrote the following on Facebook. Time flies, and I am struck by how true these words still feel.
My mom woke me up the other day to remind me, as she had done every year for the previous nine years, that it was 9/11 and that she almost lost me in Tower 2. As usual, her next words were, "You probably didn't even remember."
Later that day, Jordan [my wife] and I talked about what I did after leaving the World Trade Center. I told her that I went to our backup site and worked late into the night.
Looking back, I may have made it sound as though the day had not affected me. I have noticed that when I talk about 9/11, people sometimes come away with that impression. The truth is that it did affect me, just not in the way most people expect.
For as long as I can remember, I have tried to be grateful for both my good fortune and my misfortune. When something good happens, I pause to appreciate it. When life is hard, I look for the light at the end of the tunnel. Surviving the World Trade Center was one of many fortunate moments in my life. For me, 9/11 is a reminder of how lucky I am, not the event that defines me.
Each year on 9/11, I imagine a conversation with God, Allah, Jehovah, or whatever name we give to the divine, and I ask whether I have made good use of the life I was given. The question is about more than surviving that day. I have had 35 wonderful years, a great son, a great partner, a great family, and great friends. I often feel that I have not lived up to those gifts. So I renew my commitment to become a better human being and to make a positive difference in as many lives as I can. That is what 9/11 means to me.
That line about the backup site deserves more than it got. My job at Morgan Stanley was to maintain the disaster recovery site a few blocks north of the World Trade Center, and to make sure it was up and running by the time the market opened. On September 11, that stopped being a contingency plan and became the thing that had to work the next morning. So that is where I went, and that is what I did through the night.
If only I had Claude Code or Codex back then...
Twenty-Five Years Later
Today I still think about the day itself, the friends and colleagues we lost, and those who are still here. I think about how fortunate I was that Tower 2 was hit second, giving me the time to leave the building.
People may see me as a worrier or an overthinker, and they are not entirely wrong. I worry about how my choices affect others. I wonder whether I am doing enough in my career, and whether I am being the father, husband, sibling and friend I want to be. Part of me still wants to believe I was spared for a reason.
But 9/11 also taught me to be present, and to enjoy life fully. Twenty-five years later, I am still trying to make my life count while remaining grateful for the life I have now.
