I hate to admit this, but I don’t think the Oklahoma City bombing ever really hit me. I saw the images on TV, I read a few articles, probably even had a few conversations about it, but I cannot recall a time when I truly felt horrified at the loss of innocent lives. The more than occasional bombings in Israel and Palestine did not hit very close to home either — at least not until one occurred in Netanya, the one Israeli city that I have spent more than a couple of hours in. I guess I have always just seen violence and terrorism as something that happens in the world, but not something that happens in my own life. Recent events have shaken that assumption to the core.

I was supposed to fly to New York City on the morning of Tuesday, September 11 to attend my grandfather’s funeral. My flight was slated to take off at 10:30 a.m., and sometime before 7 a.m. the ringing of a phone woke me. I groaned and climbed out of bed, wondering what was so important. Usually early phone calls awaken some sort of irrational worry in my mind and scare the hell out of me, but I figured that since I was flying to the East Coast that morning, it was merely my family reminding me to bring something or other.

My dad’s voice was at the other end of the line. "Listen, Robin," he said, "we don’t want you to come back east."

"What?!" I responded. " I just bought a ticket and everything. Geez!"

He waited a moment. "Robin, a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center. It looks like terrorists. I just don’t think this is a good day to be flying." There was the sound of a phone ringing in the background.

"What?!" I asked yet again, still not quite awake nor aware.

"I’ve got to go. We’ll be in touch. I love you."

"I love you too, Dad." And he hung up.

I stood holding the phone for a minute and wondered what to do. I realized I needed someone to talk to, so I woke up Ari, the person who was supposed to drive me to the airport, and told her what happened. Her first thought was to wake up her suitemate and one of my sponsees, both of whom are from New York. They all came in and sat with me. I don’t think that we said much, we just sat there, horrified, unsure of what was going on. I don’t know how much time passed.

Sometime before eight, my father called back. "The building I was in yesterday just collapsed," he said, as another phone rang in the background. Then he had to go. My father had had a lunch meeting in the World Trade Center on Monday just before he learned about his father’s death. I began to worry about my father being in New York. By then, planes had crashed into the Pentagon and Pittsburgh. How many more planes were up there? Where was my father? How would he safely get home? I curled up in bed as people called to make sure that I had not gotten on my flight and others came by to visit. I didn’t want to watch the news, and I wanted to stay near my phone.

As the days have passed, I have learned that no one I know personally was hurt, but that does not lessen the impact of the act. This was too close for comfort. I can still remember exactly what I felt on the morning of September 11: uncertainty, specifically concerning exactly where my family was.

In the end, we had to cancel the funeral. I had forgotten all about my grandfather’s death. I never had the opportunity to mourn, but I also felt that one eighty-something year old’s life was somewhat inconsequential in light of what happened this past week. But perhaps that was me thinking too logically again.

I could no longer just grasp logic or reason or intellectualize what happened. For the first time, I truly felt affected by violence in the world, and it was a very scary feeling.