On the morning of 9/11 I was not scheduled to work till late afternoon…and had risen late. Upon checking my computer at about 9AM (eastern time) I saw one of the headlines on my home page “plane hits WTC. This was the first plane. I figured I would explore the story at a later time.

Something then made me thin back to that headline, and I chose to sign off and go turn on the TV ..I either turned on CN or MSNBC, do not remember which. At that moment they were replaying video of the 2nd tower being struck.
I was fixated. I thought first of my sister in law, who has family in New Jersey who ride the train into the WTC every morning for work. I called my brother, who let me know the family was fine…but that there was a near tragedy as his brother in law was originally going to be on American Flight 11, for a business trip, but his company changed his schedule to the following week…on the afternoon of Sept 10th.

The matter suggedted in this article title was brought to my attention several days afterward, once passenger lists were released of the planes. Apparently on United Flight 175 (do I have that number right?) which hit tower number 2 was a passenger named Marie Pappalardo, which is my maiden name…I should say that on 9/11 I was not yet married..my wedding was in December.

I did not know this fact till I recieved a call from a former supervisor (from my last job) who called as many of my former co-workers had gone to her to find out if it was me!!

That was what brought it home to me just how fragile life is, and how anyones life can be taken in an instant.