N.Y. native

By Patricia DePalma: The DePalma family moved to Cedar Rapids from Staten Island, N.Y., in August 1994. The majority of our families still lived in one of the boroughs. All our daughters were born there.

On 9/11/2001, I was watching GMA and getting the kids ready to go to school at Bowman Woods and Linn-Mar High School. As I saw the first live reports of a plane hitting the World Trade Center, I wondered whether to let the girls see the TV. Their grandparents still lived in Queens. We all had many friends there.

Eventually they got off to school, and I sat glued to the TV screen. I tried to call my parents, but the circuits were busy. I watched some more. As the full story became clear, the fact that this was a deliberate attack, the fact that for many years my husband and I had worked in downtown Manhattan just blocks from the WTC, memories of taking professional courses in the building, of eating in Windows on the World, all this came rushing back. We could have easily been there!

I called my husband as I watched the building collapse on the screen. Was this really happening? I called the elementary and high school. Did the girls want to come home? Did they know what was happening? Were they upset? We had just visited New York that past summer.

I was glued to the TV for days -- weeks. I couldn't sleep. I watched the TV at all hours. I wondered if people that I knew were in the buildings. I called the doctor. He prescribed pills to help me sleep but even that didn't help. I did not want to leave the house, because I was afraid I would miss something or some additional news.

Eventually, things came back to the new normal, and the media coverage was less intense. To this day, however, when I visit Glendale, Queens, where my mom and dad lived, there are many street names changed to reflect the names of first responders from that middle-class neighborhood who perished that day. And there were many, too many.

Life goes on, and the past has a way of receding in people's memories. But when the anniversary rolls around and the images re-emerge, it all comes back. Life will never be the same.

This morning (Sept. 9, 2011), nearly 10 years later, the top story on GMA is a credible threat to the country. Buildings evacuated in downtown Cedar Rapids.

I receive a text from my youngest daughter, a new freshman at Iowa. She made the mock trial team. I congratulate her and want to add, "Be careful this weekend." I don't, but only with great self-control. I never want any of them to know how I felt on that day or continue to feel all these years later. I never want them to feel as unsure and uncomfortable as I do now.

I pray for peace for the country and the world and for those families who lost loved ones. The world will never be the same, and I mourn the loss of innocence as much as anything else.