Talking about 9/11 on 9/11 (or any other day for that matter) is not at all easy. It's especially hard for me for several: (a) I was in the World Trade Center at 7:30AM on 9/11; (b) I lost one of my best friends in that tragedy; (c) I live near the site and passed by it over 1,000 times since; and (d) I'm a father of two young & impressionable children who, at some point, are going to want to know my thoughts on the matter. I'll explore each of the first three reasons as if I were trying to answer the fourth question - what to tell my children when they ask me.     That I was in the building about an hour before the first plane crashed was scary, like feeling the wind of a train that passes you by, just missing your head as you absent-mindedly bend too far forward to pick up your briefcase. Back then I would walk into the basement of the Tower to catch the PATH train to my job in NJ. Had I been running late that day, who knows what might have happened. Perhaps I wouldn't be writing this post or anything anymore. Being at the wrong place at the wrong just happens and it happens to good people and bad people with, I think, equal frequency. You can minimize risk but you cannot avoid it all together. You can live your life thoughtfully but to live it, you really must get out there so don't be afraid to do so and don't let your fear about what might happen stop you. Ever.     That I lost one of my best friends still haunts me to this day. I remember him whenever I raise a glass. A professional said this wasn't "helpful" but this is one bad habit I can't (nor do I want) to shake. The night before 9/11, we spoke no less than 7 times on account of bad cell phone reception. I was annoyed at the time, having to keep calling him back - again & again - but now, in hindsight, I'm delighted to have gotten so much extra time with him. For days and weeks after I learned his fate, I called his cell phone just to hear his voice. Again, not helpful; again, I don't care (for it really helped at the time). During his memorial, I was comforted by a few hundred people who knew and loved him as much as I did and that helped, too. I never cried so hard in all my life. To my children I'd say you must love others as much as you can and know that sometimes you will lose them for reasons that cannot even be fathomed. A live without friendship - attachments, a hermetic life - might minimize disappointment but, to me, that's no life at all. So go out there and love.     That I had to see and smell and walk by the site that caused me so much sorrow so often was painful. I couldn't see (or now that the smell is gone) pass the site without thinking about the tragedy. The feelings all that seeing and walking evoked are varied but consistent: anger; grief; remembrance; loneliness; and, ideally (but not really) - hope. I am angry at those who did it and those who knew it might happen yet did nothing and myself for not somehow foreseeing the incident and stopping my friend from going to work that day; I am aggrieved as an American - as a human being - to see a generally good (if not great) country compromised by an act of terror; I remember - I cannot forget - my friend and all the goodness he created in his 33 years; I miss him terribly and live hasn't been quite the same since he left us; finally, I am hopeful something good will come out of this (but, honestly, I'm still waiting...). Feelings, I tell my children, are not to be judged; they are what they are and it's up to us to own them and to act reasonably while feeling them.     At night, just before the anniversary, when the lights shoot (from the base of the original site) to create a ghostly image of those two old Towers, I'm haunted by all of the reasons I wrote about. I'm glad that my children haven't yet asked me about the event because I still haven't convinced myself that I understand what happened and why and, moreover, how to heal from it. Children know instinctively when others are holding back on them and this is one thing I hope not to do - at least on this particular topic. Perhaps when they are old enough to ask, I'll have better answers.