I can't help but think of what this day means to me on so many levels. I'm going to keep my own politics and ideals out of my journal for now, because I can't help remember this date last year, and this date the year before.

9/11/01 was my sixth day working at the publishing company where I'm still employed. I remember the site-wide e-mail sent, announcing "Viewing of World Trade Center, 3A." I figured it was some irrelevant message that had nothing to do with me. It wasn't until I saw Crazy Meg having yet another nervous breakdown in the ladies room that I decided to find out what was going on.

I'm sure I what I felt that day was not dissimilar to what many felt watching the Towers fall. I had Sam meet me for lunch, he was off of work that day and I couldn't concentrate. We met at the Winking Lizard, a loud sports bar-type restaurant. People were standing six deep at the bar, focusing from one television screen to the next. It was eerily quiet. I remember squeezing Sam's hand. He was wearing his uniform that day because he had worked that night (he was a fireman). I thought of all those firemen lost...running into the towers when they should have been running away. I thought of all those that were certainly dead, both young and old, and their wives, their girlfriends, their children. It broke my heart to think of what they must be going through. I remember feeling so lucky we didn't live in New York, that we were safe from such a fate. I couldn't imagine losing my Sammy. He wanted the opposite...to be there, to help, to be a hero.

That night all of our friends congregated in our living room, as they tended to do. Jesse, Jessica, Josh, and Frank were there. People were calling constantly, the men were damning everything and everyone that wasn't American while they drank their Budweisers, and we watched the news together. We were among the morons who were hit by the price gauging gas stations, waiting almost an hour for all of us to get gas so we could go home, drink, and be together. I held Sam, my brave fireman, more tightly than usual as we slept that night.

Sam spent hours those following weeks in our town, standing in intersections with a fire boot, raising money for the families of the New York firefighters. He was proud to do something for those touched so closely by this tragedy.

Last year Sam worked on 9/11. I remember sitting home alone watching all of the Anniversary coverage on television. One of the shows featured interviews with fireman that survived. Men talked about their friends, brothers, and fathers that were lost, many of the bodies not recovered. I cried the entire time, until Sam came home and asked, "Why are you doing this to yourself?" He changed the channel, and I really can't remember the rest of that evening.

I had never been so afraid of the danger associated with him being a firefighter before 9/11. I always imagined him being strong and capable, never vulnerable. It was the first time I feared his job could take his life. I never imagined that he would take his own life. Ironic that I never saw him as vulnerable, is it not? What kind of pain must he have been in?

Just over 2 months after that first anniversary, Sam and I went to the bar for darts and drinks. We had a great time that night. When I drove us home we were holding hands...then he told me he was "done." I tried to help him, even after he threw me down our back stairs and locked me out of the house. He pulled the phone out of the wall so that I couldn't call for help. He unlocked the door and let me back in the house before he pulled the trigger of the 12-gauge shotgun, shooting himself in the mouth. He didn't stand a chance. I still don't believe he knew what he was doing.

His brother firefighters stood by his grave at the funeral home and at the cemetary. The procession from the funeral home to his grave passed his fire department. The men were outside, they had pulled the trucks out of the garage and stood in their dress uniforms. They saluted the coffin as it drove past. I'll never forget his empty gear resting at their feet, his boots empty, his helmet lifeless on the ground.

Ironically enough, it was others' turn to collect money for him, for his two children that no longer have a father, and for his mother who couldn't pay for the funeral. Why am I thinking about this so much today? I guess I can't help thinking about him when I think of those brave, vulnerable firefighters. Because I was with him that horrible day, and I was so consumed with fear of losing him someday.

I dread the next few months. His birthday is in two weeks. He would have been 27. He was still so young. I miss him so much. I wonder if this will ever get easier.