Read Online Chicken Soup for the Soul of America by Jack Canfield - Free Book Online Page B

moving, but I could hear no sound. All I could think of was getting to my desk and hearing a message from my husband.
    As I arrived at the Chrysler Building, I walked through the lobby and could hear the guards saying, “We are evacuating.” I kept walking as fast as I could, afraid I would be stopped from going up to my office. I reached an empty elevator and got in, praying the door would close. One of my coworkers, Verne, got on and said, “Did you hear about what’s going on at the World Trade Center?” I broke down and said through tears, “My husband works there.” I did not hear his words but felt his support as he put an arm around me for comfort.
    We arrived on the sixteenth floor, and I heard my boss from his office saying, “Rosemarie, have you heard from your husband?”
    I said I had not and ran to check my messages. Jeff asked if my husband had a cell phone or a beeper. I told him Eddie did not have the cell phone with him.
    There were no voicemail messages from Eddie.
    The first person to call was my sister, Carmel. She was in tears as she asked if I had heard from him. I told her I had not. We were both on the verge of hysteria. She said she was fine. (She worked one block from the World Trade Center.) She also told me my niece, Sharon, was fine. (She worked in the South Tower.)
    My other sister, Mary Lou, called also inquiring about Eddie. I again said there was no word from him. She hung up asking me to call as soon as I heard.
    I turned on my computer and scrolled through my e-mail messages hoping to see my husband’s name. No e-mail messages either.
    I spotted an e-mail message from my youngest daughter, Jillian. She and my second daughter, Jessica, attend the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania. It said, “Please e-mail back as soon as you get this and let me know what is going on with the World Trade Center. I tried calling you and Daddy, but I can’t get through. I need to know if Daddy is okay. Please get back to me as soon as you can.” I called her and told her I did not know anything yet.
    Everyone in the office was very supportive and concerned. My boss asked the secretary next to me if she would answer my phone if I was away from my desk. She agreed and offered me a cup of coffee. My supervisor came to my desk and asked if she could do anything to help.
    The fire alarm went off, and they announced on the PA system that they were evacuating the building. My mind was in turmoil. I did not want to leave. I did not know where to go or what to do. My boss started telling me what to do, and I responded like a robot. I felt like I was watching what was happening from outside my body. Jeff instructed me to change my voicemail message to say that I was not in the office due to the incident at the World Trade Center and to tell my husband, if it was him calling, that I would be at my mother’s, to give my mother’s phone number, and as an alternative, to contact my boss on his cell phone and give his number.
    At that point my other daughter called, and I told her I had not heard from Daddy and that I was going to my mother’s because we had to evacuate the building. I told her I would call her when I got to my mother’s. We all just kept praying.
    The phone rang again. I picked it up. I heard a voice on the other end say, “Hi, Ro. It’s me.”
    Eddie was sitting in a conference room, facing a window near his office on the seventy-fourth floor of the North Tower when he heard the plane crash into the building above him and felt the building move about a foot. He saw flaming debris falling and smelled the jet fuel. He went to the nearest emergency exit and started down the stairs. He met one of his coworkers, and they stayed together. He said everyone was very orderly and acted in a calm manner. They stayed to the right of the stairs, allowing the injured people to go down past them. When they were approximately halfway down,