Perspective is Everything, and it is none more evident than today. 12 years ago today, I remember waking up on Hartwick College’s campus to rigid snaps of a phone ring. A brisk Tuesday morning, I answered the telephone in a calm, semi-slumbering voice. “Hello…”, I answered, wholeheartedly expecting to hear some funny story from the night before, or talk to my mama, or get a wrong number. I answered that call fully expecting to get up and go to my 10:10 am class like every other Tuesday on Oyaron Hill. I got something different after my “Hello…” One the other end of the line, my best friend, Kwame’s voice was quivering. Who knew, 12 years later, he’d be fighting for the same freedoms that were being attacked that day. The Towers were a symbol. The first thing you saw when you were coming ‘home’, the first thing you saw when you were coming back to New York City.
He was the first person I had heard from that day, and I’ll always think of him in regards to this. He was, and is, as strong as a person I’ve ever known, and that day…his strength was wavering. This struck a fear in me that I hadn’t really felt before within our relationship. Ups, downs, ins and outs between best friends are normal, but this was something else. New territory. Raw emotion, dipped in fear. “The Towers are gone, Son.”, his response trembled through the phone. “Turn on the television.” And just like everyone we knew was in crisis mode. I was ripped from a dream, into something that also didn’t seem like reality. I remember one burning building, then two, I remember the collapse, and I remember horrid images of people tossing themselves away from it all, rather than die in the midst of atrocity. I remember Waveny, I remember Cindy and her sister who would’ve been in the blast radius, had she not called in sick that day. I remember love from all of our friends and family and all of us that banded together on the campus we loved to make sure that we were all okay.

Cell phones were shared, we all got in touch with our people and we watched in horror for the remainder of the days to come. I remember feeling naked and vulnerable, and I remember feeling loved and secure. These are some of the reasons why I’ll never forget. This is my recount.

Daymyen Tyler Layne

9/11/13