Angel Tower.

6:45 a.m. my alarm is going off. I reach over to my bedside manner to give it a subtle tap while my face is still buried in my pillow, that alarm is this mama's call sign to get up and go to work. First I have to make sure that the kids have had breakfast and that my husband gets up and has his coffee before he heads to work. That didn't take long, normally it takes me an hour to get ready for work, but being that today is casual dress day I didn't have to be so formal ready. After the kids got on the bus, me and my college sweetheart rushed to the train so we could make it to lower Manhattan. My husband has a long day at the stock exchange and I have a long day at the World Trade Center.

It's been years since I first moved to New York City and yet I'm still amazed at the crowd of people I see everyday on my way to work, but I guess that's just life in the big city. Once upon a time I was afraid of heights, but now I'm working on the 100th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center and I love it. When I say I was afraid of heights, I didn't mean physically, I meant mentally. I was afraid of change and growth taking place in my life, but I knew it wasn't my destiny to be afraid and inhibited. I was meant to be a swan that soared to tremendous heights and thanks to my determination and perseverance I'm literally now a thousand feet taller and living my dream career in the sky. I wouldn't be here without my faith in God and the support of my family, they truly are my heart and soul.

Well here we are, lower Manhattan at last. As we get off the train my husband gives me a big hug and a kiss as he makes his way to the stock exchange. As I make my way to the towers I contemplate what type of day this will be. Will I get done early enough to get home and help my husband plan out our fall schedule of events for the family? Maybe me and my best girlfriends at work will have lunch at Windows on the World at the top of the towers. Now that I'm finally here I can begin my long city sized travel to the 100th floor. Maybe it won't be a ten minute journey like it normally is, at least I can enjoy the company of my friends from Euro-Brokers, Fuji-Bank and Morgan Stanley to keep me company on the way up, not to mention our periodical water cooler talks with the Cantor-Fitzgerald crew .

Sure enough I see them as I board the elevator. They all joke and jest about how uncomfortable I look in my not so business attire. Of course I joke back about how goofy and uncool they look for coming to work in their business suits even though they could've dressed down for casual dress day. After our elevator ride and long laughs I finally arrive at my floor. As expected it's already starting to get busy with a couple dozen traders and brokers already in work mode for the day. I take a seat at my desk and place my coffee right next to my computer as some of my fellow broker mates come over to acknowledge my attire once more. I'm really having a good laugh and this is exactly what I needed. Yes, this is gonna be a good day.

As the morning is getting underway and thousands of people such as myself continue to fill our workplace in the sky I can hear a loud noise from outside of the window west of where I am seated at my desk. It sounded like the engine of an airplane or a jet, one that was most likely getting ready to land at Newark Airport, but never had I ever heard one this close to the towers. Before I can press another key on my computer I am knocked over by a vigorous force of pressure, accompanied by what sounded like an explosion. The 100 plus number of people surrounding me were also knocked over, followed by our workplace materials being knocked over and screams of terror erupting symphonically. A thunderous vibration roars through the building, feeling almost like an earthquake.

As me and my cohorts come to and try to rise to our feet to collect ourselves I quickly noticed the building was moving, almost like it was about to fall over, my heart was suddenly engulfed with a fearful halt. When I looked out the window in front of me I could see flames blowing upward in our direction from the floors below, along with furniture, debris, and dare I say what looked like people gliding through mid air before descending to the ground. The roaring vibration gradually subsides and as we all make it to our feet wondering what just happened, smoke slowly starts to enter our quarters through the ventilation and from beneath the doors. It felt and sounded like a bomb went off, so many of us leave from our workspaces and make our way to the stairwells.

We start trying to see if we can travel downward, but the further down the stairwells we try to travel, the more darkness, smoke, heat, and fire do we encounter. We realize that the conditioning below us is too intense for us to make it through, so we decide to go back up. As we go back up I'm starting to get scared, but I know I have to keep my composure. With the smoke becoming more dense, we realize that we need to go further upward towards the roof. When we make it several floors closer to the roof of the towers we find hundreds of more people scurrying around in pandemonium, wondering what is happening and how are we going to make it out of this. Many of us start making phone calls on our cellular phones as well as the building's work phones that are working.

I use my phone to dial 9-1-1, who tells me that they have firefighters in route to come save us, this brings me some calm. After dialing 9-1-1 I call my husband, he picks up on the first ring, with a tone of concern before I could say anything. It seemed as if he already knew what was going on, that's because he did know. What happened to our building was all over the news, just merely ten minutes after it happened. Apparently it was a plane that crashed into our building. I tell him that I am ok where I am, but that I am unable to get out and that help is on the way. This doesn't seem to be bringing him any peace of mind, he has as much fear and worry in his voice as all of us in the tower have inside of ourselves.

As I try to ensure my husband that everything is going to be ok I was suddenly interrupted by a force of pressure in the air hitting our floor in a wave and once more knocking us down. It felt like a bomb went off like when the plane crashed into our building, but the blast wasn't as powerful as the first one felt. When we collected ourselves and rose to our feet we saw a new wave of smoke and flames engulfing upward in our direction, this time from floors further down. The call from my husband had been cut off. When I dialed him back he picked up the phone on first ring again and he was hysterical. He told me that a second plane had flown into the South tower right beside us. Dear God, I couldn't believe what was happening.

The news started to spread among everyone who was with me and it became clear that this was no accident, but a deliberate attack. The question now was are the authorities going to be able to rescue us before we are overwhelmed by the smoke and fire. As time passes the smoke is starting to grow thicker and my cohorts started to break windows. I want to believe that we are going to be rescued and we'll make it out of here, but the room is getting darker, the voices are getting fainter, and the chances seem to be getting slimmer. How could this have happened and why is it happening to me? I can't believe it, but I think I'm going to die. I don't want to die, I'm not ready to die. There is so much time with my husband and my kids that I need to have. Please God, send us a miracle.

One hour has now passed. Phone signals have been going in and out for everyone so I have only been able to talk to my husband on and off periodically. Some of my friends who are up here with me have been able to break some windows and let air in for us coming from the surrounding floors. If I had to guess, I would say it is nearly a thousand of us trapped above the area where the plane impacted. We are hot, sweaty, and slowly ready to lose consciousness. I've called 9-1-1 and they swore to me that they are sending fire and rescue teams to save me and all my coworkers. With every minute that passes it seems less and less likely that we will be saved.

I try once more to call my husband and this time the call goes through. When he picks up the phone he tells me that an explosion of some sort has happened at the Pentagon in Washington DC and that smoke is billowing out of the building in a manner much similar to how smoke is coming out of our building. Before the news could actually confirm it, he and I guessed that it was more than likely another airplane, all apart of this organized attack. As much as I was trapped in my own struggle in this tower, I felt a great deal of heartache for everyone at the Pentagon in Washington, because I knew a large amount of life had been loss there and that many people there were trapped in smoke and flames like me and my coworkers.

As I'm sitting on the floor with smoke hovering over my head, exhausted with my mind racing with a million and one thoughts about my impending fate and still on the phone with my husband, something mystifying begins to happen. My coworkers and I begin to feel the building shake from beneath us, almost like an earthquake was happening. The quaking becomes more and more turbulent, oh God, is the building falling down? is this it? I close my eyes as my heart clenches tightly and everyone around me erupts in a chorus of screams. I see a giant dark cloud of what looked like smoke engulfing the atmosphere outside of my window. Slowly but surely, the quaking began to subside, but the dark dust cloud outside of windows continued to hover around us. Though the thick cloud of dust was still there I couldn't help but feel that there was an emptiness outside of our building. In my gut I knew what that emptiness was, the South tower had collapsed from right beside us.

Even though it was the second tower to be hit, it was the first to go. That means that our tower didn't have much longer. This building is even more unstable and unsafe to enter than it already was, which means that help won't be coming, we really are going to die. This realization makes me sad, but I'm not afraid. I've had enough time to process this conclusion and I'm nearly at peace with it, I know that it is in God's hands now. I try to call my husband one last time, but I can't reach him. I just want to tell him how much I love him and the kids before I go.

I would have never guessed when I woke up on this beautiful cloudless day that this would be the final day of my life, much like everyone else who loss their lives in today's events. I guess that's why we have to make the most of every moment we have because we never know which one will be our grand finale. There is so much that I wish I could have lived to see in the future. Watching my baby boy grow up to be a husband and father, watching my baby girl grow up to be a wife and mother, and growing old and silly with my college sweetheart, but I will be able to rest in peace because I know they understand how much I love them all and how much they mean to me.

As I look back on my life in these final moments I am truly grateful for how blessed I have been. I come from an amazing family and I have lived a crazy fun life accompanied by some amazing friends as well. I have been blessed to have lived such a challenging, yet prosperous life and I wouldn't change one thing that has taken place. Now here comes the quaking again, only this time it's more local. This is it, my building is getting ready to fall. The final screams are in the air and the building is starting to disintegrate around me. My heart is racing as the end nears, yes, this is very scary, but I refuse to die in fear. I know my family and loved ones will be heartbroken by my death, but I will always be with them, watching over them from high up and forever living in their loving memories. Yes, I died, but I was never a corpse, I just became a tower angel.

~~ Dedicated to the memory of everyone who perished on September 11th 2001. We will never forget.