I woke up in a cold sweat, but it wasn’t due to menopause or my autoimmune disease (igG4-RD). Instead, I was overcome with a sense of grief and anxiety. I realize working on stories for the 25th anniversary of September 11th and the anniversary of my mother’s death were getting to me.

The last time I really thought about that day was six years ago when my mother passed away. In 2020, I tried to be grateful for the extra time I had with her. She had survived the towers falling. She was working on Maiden Lane. She called me before the line went dead. I didn’t know what happened to her or my colleagues who disappeared behind clouds of smoke. 

A few hours later, when I left work to find food and hotel rooms for everyone that night, I could smell death and decomposition in the air. I wandered around until I found myself near Ground Zero. I didn’t know where to look for my mother so after a few minutes then I left. 

The next day my mother called me. She was home. She told me she had grabbed hands with her colleagues and ran to Grand Central. So, I had 19 extra years with my mother because she braved the unknown.

My mother‘s doctors never confirmed that her the gastric cancer came from 9/11. I suspect it did. While trying to cure it, the chemotherapy drugs caused her to develop systematic scleroderma, which took her from us.

This year, I’m angrier than I’ve ever been.  Officials lied and concealed the truth about the air quality. If we’d have known, we could’ve had my mother checked out more thoroughly every year. Perhaps, I wouldn’t have had part of my thyroid and 2-inch nodule taken out of my neck in March. Its presence made me wonder if exposure at ground zero contributed to it or worsened my autoimmune disease. I know it claimed the life of colleague three years ago.

In 2001, I was in my early 20s. I didn’t know to be concerned about what I was breathing in. Now I do and I will forever question what could’ve been different.