"Everything has changed."
That's the quote I will always remember from that horrible day. That's what one of the Yale University professors said to me that morning as I raced to get comment for the New Haven Register's special afternoon "Extra" on 9-11.
While I feverishly worked on this extra-special deadline, I kept thinking about my kids in school (Natalie was 9, Charlotte was 7) and about my wife, Jennifer Kaylin, who was then a TV producer for WTNH Channel 8.
She was in New York City, or at least trying to get there. She had jumped in a news van with a reporter and cameraman when the second plane hit the World Trade Center. She got on the road before all routes to the city were blocked by police.
After I filed by story, I left the office to seek out my kids. I hadn't felt compelled to pull them out of school, as some parents had done, but I did need to see them, to try to reassure them that "Everything will be all right." That's what parents always say, even when the world seems to be spinning off its axis.
I knocked on the door of my kids' after-school sitter and greeted them with extra-strong hugs. We talked about what had happened; I tried to remain calm and matter-of-fact while discussing those extraordinary events.
Natalie had an 8-ball and she pulled it out. She asked the ball, "Will it happen in Connecticut?"
The answer was something like, "You can count on it." But I told them not to worry, it won't happen here. They seemed OK. I kissed them and went back to work.
That afternoon my wife called me and said she was five blocks from Ground Zero. She would be staying overnight and perhaps several more nights beyond.
"I love you. Be careful," I said.
"I love you too," she said.
She was gone the rest of the week. I watched over the kids, aided by friends. One night a few days later, as I was lying in bed with my daughters, trying to get them to go to sleep, I was jolted by a noise outside. Charlotte asked, "Is it the guy from New York?" (She meant Osama bin Laden.)
I also remember going to their school on 9-12 and hearing the kids sing, "Let there be peace on earth -- and let it begin with me."
This is the message we have lost in the ensuing five years. So many of our soldiers dead, so many Iraqi civilians dead, so much money wasted -- more than $400 billion.
As I see the daily toll, including young soldiers from the New Haven area, I ask: How many more? What for?
Another aspect of this day that has been largely unnoticed, except by New Yorkers for a Department of Peace: this is the 100th anniversary of the day Mohandas Gandhi launched the non-violence movement for social justice. He was living in South Africa then, a young Indian lawyer seeking to oppose stifling regulations against Indians and "coloreds." In the years that followed, the movement spread to India and beyond. Later this philosophy and tactic would be used by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Non-violence? Really? It works?
Let's think about it. As our kids try to tell us: Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with us.