They say hindsight is twenty-twenty and that all of us look back at an incident in our lives and wonder what we would have, could have – or should have done differently. I have to say that since September 11th – that is all that I have been doing. From questioning my own actions from that morning, to my actions during and after the disaster – I frequently ponder how different life would be if I made different decisions on that fateful day.

The most frequent question I ask my self is about Doug. Every workday, I used to drive Christine and Doug to work, and each morning, I would drop him off on Chambers Street at about 8:20am – which is exactly what I did on the morning of September 11th. What if I woke up late? What if I called in sick? What if I forgot to pick him up? And what if I never offered to drive him to work in the first place?

Another series of questions that I ponder are about the moment the first Tower collapsed. I was just two blocks away when the one hundred and ten story structure began to fall and I managed to get away with only emotional bruises instead of physical ones. But I wonder, what if I decided to run towards the Towers just ten minutes earlier? What if I was one block away instead of two? What if I ran towards the building after the first plane hit instead of after the second one hit? And what if I couldn’t get away from the Tower when it fell?

I even ponder what I did following the disaster when I left the City and went back to work a few days later. What if I stayed at the site to help and was near 7 World Trade Center when it collapsed? What if I was digging and found a body? And what if I would have stayed at the site instead of running away from it?

I realize that looking back is unrealistic as you can’t turn back the clock, but I can’t help but wonder how much different life would be if I had made different decisions that day. Maybe I would have been killed. Maybe Doug would still be alive – and maybe the events of that day would not be as painful as they still are.