I was in the Millennium Diner in Smithtown, speaking to one of my insurance clients over breakfast. “A plane just crashed into the Twin Towers!” someone shouted. I assumed it was a small plane and felt bad for the people in that unfortunate incident.

I left the diner and went to help my brother on a project he was working on in Howard Beach. I turned the radio on and heard that this was a large passenger plane. I wondered how this could happen.

My brother John’s house is on Jamaica Bay, with a clear line of sight to the towers. We watched them fall. When that happened, John’s head dropped and he said, “Three hundred firemen just died.” He was wrong; it turned out to be 354. He was a retired firefighter, but remained close to the firemen and he was distraught by what we saw.

The impact on all of us was terrible. A few days later, I went to Oneonta, New York. While there, I needed something from a hardware store and the lady who was helping me asked me where I was from. I told her I just came from New York City. She held my hand firmly and her eyes filled with tears. “Sorry, so sorry,” she said. I realized that pain was spreading far and wide on that sad occasion.