Follow your dreams

Written by IgoFaster on October 31, 2009

On 9-11-01 I was traveling for work and was in Akron, OH the place I was at had a radio on and I heard a plane hit one of the towers. I thought no big deal some pilot in a small plane was not paying attention and hit a building probably no one hurt but the pilot. I called Donna my wife and had her turn on CNN and then found out it was a bigger plane and as the day unfolded I received messages “another plane has hit” “the tower has collapsed, it’s just gone” “the second tower has collapsed”. I could not comprehend over the phone that nothing was left of the World Trade Center towers it just would not register. Then I heard Akron, OH was being evacuated there was a plane headed this way and a target was thought to be is a place that makes a rare silicon for microchips two blocks away. I got back to my hotel room and turned on CNN to see people jumping from the towers footage shot earlier in the day I saw a black woman in a red blouse and black skirt falling after she jumped from one of the buildings. I was in disbelief so that is what my mind remembers of the incident but that is what stuck with me. Over the course of the next several months I thought of her almost every day almost as if she was a part of my family a sister, mother, cousin, aunt none specific but with the same care. I have lost a lot of people who were close to me and I carry there memories and the way they changed my life with me as if to dedicate what I do in my life in some small way to them. This is the way I feel about the woman I saw that day falling from the tower. I thought about what she may have done, how she probably got ready that morning like any other picked out her clothes and the right pair of shoes maybe got her kids ready for school kissed them like any other day maybe said bye to her husband as she left for work. Maybe she lived alone or with a room mate stopped and got her coffee and breakfast at the usual spot and enjoyed the beautiful morning. As she got to work she found herself in an unimaginable situation as many did that day maybe thinking of the things she had yet to do in her life, the people she loved and would not see again. She stood alone in a broken window, fire raging behind her with no escape hundreds of feet above the city with her thoughts and dreams. She chose her last moment in this life as she stepped out into nothing knowing this was it this was the end of her life this was the last choice she would make at that moment she ended her life. She had no way of knowing her last moment would change a person she had never met and would become a part of my life. I have talked to people about this but never written it down until now and find the emotion still very strong. I ran through all the scenarios during the months that followed and what she may have gone through that morning. I put myself in her position, I thought of the things I planned to do when I had the time or the money the things I put off until tomorrow. One thing I had talked about was flying, becoming a pilot and because of her decided in March of 2002 to start flying and in March of 2003 I became a pilot. I made sure that I was in the air on the anniversary of 9-11-02 to remember her in my own way the flight lasted 2 hours and at the moment of the first impact a moment of silence for all radio traffic the moment lasted 15 minutes. If it were left to me I may have continued to put it off for whatever reason not enough time not enough money but she imprinted in me anything can happen and the things you put off you may never get the chance to do. Do you think she could have imagined while getting ready that morning in a few hours she would be jumping from her office window, I can’t even imagine the thought. From the moment that she ended her life she became a part of mine, part of what I believe is the interaction a person has on others is a part of them that lives on, a person through their actions can change the dynamics of the world. I am sharing this story for her a person that I will never know that has had a profound impact on my life. Most of us will never know what the last thing we do that may be our last so live as if it is. If you have read this and have a dream a big one or a small one follow that dream start it today, tomorrow may never be. I am sharing this because of a phone conversation I had a few weeks ago with someone I shaded this with a few years ago who told me it had changed there life as well another dynamic I had not quite thought of.