At around 8:45 AM on September 11, 2001, I was on a plane taxiing towards a LaGuardia Airport runway. We were scheduled to leave New York at 9 AM and arrive in Washington, DC about an hour later. Gifford, my guide dog, was lying between my feet.

At around 9:30, the plane raced back to the gate.

“What’s going on?” I asked the man staffing the ticket counter.

“A small plane ran into one of the World Trade Center towers,” he told me. “The airport will be closed until further notice.”

An airport employee assisted Gifford and me to the taxi stand.

“Where do you want to go?” a cabdriver asked.

“Penn Station in Manhattan.”

“I can’t take you there.”

“What do you mean?” the airport employee and I asked together.

“I can’t take you there.”

“What do you mean?” the airport assistor demanded.

“Don’t worry,” I said, my voice tinged with irritation. “He doesn’t want to take my guide dog. This happens all the time.”

“No! No!” the cabbie nearly shouted. “Nobody can go into Manhattan.”

Not sure if I believed him, I asked if he could drop me off at a subway station.

“Subways aren’t running either,” another passenger told me.

I stood there, not knowing what was going on or what to do.

“Why don’t you come with me?” the other passenger suggested. “My employer has paid for a limo to take me to my home in Mt. Kisco.”

During the 90-minute drive with the radio tuned to one of New York’s all-news stations, I called friends in the area hoping to find a place to crash. Irene Cornell, a grizzled veteran reporter who I had heard since I was ten years old, interrupted my efforts when, in a terrified dust-filled voice, she described the collapse of both World Trade Center towers; the ensuing pandemonium; and how she had just escaped.

The ringing of my cell phone snapped us from our horrified silence. The caller was Elaine, an old family friend, who agreed to host me for a night.

At around noon, I sat on my LaGuardia good Samaritan’s porch as she went to pick up her daughter from the local high school. I thought back to my mom’s description of how the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had ignited the United States’ involvement in World War II, with all of its death, destruction, and sacrifice. I wondered if that’s where we were headed. I’m still wondering.

“Hi, Peter,” Elaine’s warm, musical voice called from her car’s open window as she drove towards me. We hugged, not knowing quite what to say.

At the house, I tuned into Sean Hannity’s radio show, and was pleasantly surprised with his stressing the importance of unity. Within five minutes, however, he started ranting about the glories of President Bush and the horrors of Vice-President Gore. Disgusted, I switched to a different station. I haven’t listened to his show since.

The next morning, I boarded an Amtrak train one stop before New York City’s Penn Station. I was vaguely surprised that Gifford and I seemed to have the car to ourselves.

During the 45-minute layover at Penn Station, more and more people crammed onto the train. Every seat was full; every inch of aisle space was taken. The usual northeast corridor grumbling was absent; we all just wanted to go home.

Between Philadelphia and Wilmington, my seatmate eased into a story about how she and her husband had been staying at a hotel near the World Trade Center; how the hotel had been set on fire when the planes hit the towers; how they had to flee without much of their luggage; how they had gotten separated; how she had seen people jumping from the top floors of the Trade Center towers to escape the inferno while walking more than two miles to another hotel near Penn Station where she had reconnected with her husband. As she told her story, my social work training kicked in. I realized that what this stranger needed was an empathic ear and a present mind, not “everything-will-be-OK” bromides.

“I’m glad I’m home,” she said as the train pulled into a station near Baltimore. “I don’t think we will ever visit New York City again.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said. “Hang in there.”

“I’m glad we’re home,” I told Gifford an hour later as we walked into the quiet studio apartment we shared.