There is a photo that I took a couple of months ago, in New York City, that offers a dual glimpse of blue-green motion from the long skirt I'd been wearing and one of my daughter Molly's feet raised in its mint green Converse. When I think of this image now, the moment as I recall it seems to exist in the periphery of my mind's eye, a gentle blur of movement between Molly and me and the suggestion of urgency as I had followed her path. I remember that when I had looked down at our feet, I had been reminded of the ocean and the deep green tones of swirling froth around my ankles as the tide came in every evening. As we'd walked through New York, I know that I had felt, as I always do, a protectiveness towards Molly and her sister Riley; they get tired of hearing me talk about situational awareness, but I know that one day they'll understand the importance of it. This photo doesn't show the intense heat and humidity of that week in New York; this photo doesn't hint at the unending exhaustion and worry of parenthood; the feet in this photo could belong to anyone.

After taking the train from Manhattan to somewhere north of the Battery Park area, we had walked to One World Trade Center and the 9/11 Memorial. It felt surreal, I told my family, to remember that during a previous visit to New York, circa 1998, I had sat in a restaurant called Windows on the World, located in the North Tower, and had a drink; I remember that the dining room had been designed to rotate ever so slowly, so that patrons were able to enjoy a gradually changing view of Manhattan's skyline. It was strange to think that everything that used to stand there before was simply gone, along with so many thousands of lives. I didn't want to go back inside the World Trade Center where, to my horror, multiple souvenir shops and restaurants had been opened; everywhere I looked, there was something geared towards tourists. All of it seemed wrong.

“Look,” Molly said quietly, pointing to the rows of names on the Memorial. “This one says 'and her unborn child'.”

I will never forget the sudden hush of my office on that September morning in 2001; the air had felt still, inexplicably devoid of typing sounds and the familiar hum of the copy machine; there was no one talking, coughing, sneezing or laughing. I had followed the absence of sound to my boss's office, where I found that my coworkers had gathered to stare at the large television hanging in one corner of the room. The scene that was depicted live on a national news channel made no sense; the news anchors were attempting to report on what was happening, despite being visibly shaken. Someone in my office murmured aloud, wondering about the possibility of a bomb having gone off, because of the amount of smoke coming from one of the Twin Towers, and then we had all watched in horror as a plane flew into the second building – the South Tower. There were audible gasps as the aircraft hit the tower; I heard a woman crying softly behind me. We were told that we could leave for the remainder of the day.

I wordlessly got into my car and drove down empty rural streets to pick up my two-year old daughter Thyra from daycare; the screen door had squeaked as I'd nudged it open and greeted my daughter and the babysitter. There had been a cool breeze drifting from outside into the house, and I remember thinking that if I could just stay there for a little while, everything might be okay when we left; but I knew that we couldn't stay. I took Thyra home to our dingy little rental house and locked the door, my hands trembling from the effort it was taking for me to stay calm. I turned on the news and we sat together for a long time, my tears running into my daughter's dark hair, as the world fell apart.