On Blessings, and Counting Them

I didn’t need to turn on the news to catch the breaking story about a 25-story crane collapse in midtown that’s now killed two so far and counting. Because my father and my stepmother called me, at 2:25, having just witnessed it. It was so close to them I could hear the ambulances and rescue vehicles start to arrive in the background.

It was so close that my stepmother had passed by the site 30 seconds earlier.

I told my father that I had never heard him so shaken up, not even on 9/11. “That’s because,” he said, “I didn’t see 9/11 myself.”

And then he added, “Like you did.”

Ran right home and kissed my children.

{14 Comments}

14 thoughts on “On Blessings, and Counting Them”

  1. I can’t imagine having had children on 9/11, like some of my staff did. ONe mother walked for hours back to Jamaica, Queens instead of holing up at my place with the rest of us. Now I get that entirely.

  2. I just read about this.Makes it hard to sweat the small stuff when you hear stories like this.So glad your family is okay.

  3. glad you and yours are ok…and, not to make light of something terrible happening, but i really needed this little bit of perspective tonight.i got home from work about 30 minutes ago, and decided to check a few blogs before bed even though weekend posts are rare…and here i found exactly what i needed.thank you.

  4. Oh God, that’s horrible. It’s so weird because my reaction to the tragedy was genuine sadness and concern, but, like 9/11 when you hear about people you actually know who were so directly affected it makes it so much worse.I was watching the footage of the devastation in Atlanta with the same lump in my throat, although I don’t know anyone who lives there. Sometimes it makes being a parent nearly unbearable when you think of all the “what ifs.”

  5. glad you and yours are ok. i went to the city yesterday during the day then i went to brooklyn for the night….i did not hear about it or read about it, until today ??? very scary.

  6. One of my oldest friends moved to NYC (from Toronto) and lives only 1.5 blocks from that crane. She emailed all of us right when it happened as she too watched it collapse. She’s a little shaken, to be sure!

  7. Oh no! How scary. I’m glad they weren’t hurt. I heard about it on the radio this morning. What a horrible thing.

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