My name is Candace Realtin.

I was only seven years old when the worst disaster in all of New York City occurred–a disaster that was to change the course of American history forever.

*  *  *

I was a very bright and curious child. I loved crocheting and art, as well as weaving bracelets for my playmates. My father was John Realtin, who worked in the World Trade Center. My mother, Lacey Harpe Realtin, was a pediatrician. My sister, Harmony, three years younger than I, mostly enjoyed mimicking whomever she heard.

One of my most favorite pieces of jewelry to wear was a pearl bracelet with silver cross charms. Dad gave it to me for my fifth birthday and I’ve worn it ever since. Whenever I went out with my parents to church or a store, a few people asked me the significance of the crosses on my bracelet. I told them about Jesus and how His love set me free from my sins.

And the same God Who set me free would be the same God Who would rescue me from the NYC disaster that came to be known as 9/11.

*  *  *

It all started the morning of September 11, 2001. I woke up, got dressed, made my bed, and woke up my little sister.  My mom had left early to got to work, so I dressed my sister and fed her. My school had a teachers’ meeting that day, so I went with Dad to work.

We boarded the train and rode along for a few miles. I amused myself by drawing the blurred landscape as it zoomed by. Harmony played with her pink bunny, the one Mom used to own as a child and was missing an eye. Dad, one hand rested on his briefcase, looked thoughtfully out the far window. I wondered what was on his mind.

“Dad?” I said at last.

He looked at me, a smile replacing his former expression. “Yes?”

“Is something wrong? You look like you’re thinking about something really important,” I said.

Dad shook his head. “I’m okay, Candace.”

I honestly didn’t believe him, but decided to keep my thoughts to myself. I looked back down at the art I was making. . .a picture of small trees and sunflowers, occasionally a weed or two. My sister babbled to her bunny, oblivious to the slightly tense atmosphere between Dad and I.

While I was staring at my drawing and deciding what color to add to the shading of the sky, a woman around twenty-seven years old approached my seat and sat beside me. In her arms was a little girl who looked to be a year younger than my sister. She was cooing and seemed very happy. The woman, on the other hand, looked exhausted. She seemed ready to fall asleep.

“Do you want me to hold her?” I asked.

The woman started and looked over at me. Her blue eyes were questioning but kind.  “If you like,” she said in a small voice, handing over the toddler.

I took the little girl into my arms and held her gently the way I did my sister when she was going to nap. I made funny faces at her and soon had her screaming with laughter. My sister looked shyly at the toddler, one finger in her mouth, the bunny clasped in the other hand.

“Her name is Autherine,” the woman said. “But I call her Authy. She was born in May 1998.”

“She’s cute,” I said. “She reminds me a lot of my baby sister, Harmony.”

The woman smiled. Then she sighed and leaned her head back against the plush headrest. “My husband is working in his office today and the neighbor who usually babysits my little girl is ill, so I’m going to take Authy to the Children’s Discovery Center. Then I’m going to work at the World Trade Center.”

As she spoke, her gaze fell on my bracelet and her smile widened even more. “I love your bracelet,” she said, pointing to it.

“Thank you,” I said softly. “It was a gift for my fifth birthday.”

The woman continued to study my bracelet. “I assume the crosses stand for Jesus’ death on the cross,” she guessed.

“That’s right,” I nodded. “He died to set us free.”

“Are you a Christian?” she asked.

I nodded again. “Yes, ma’am. Are you?”

“Wholeheartedly,” she said. “I hope Authy will become one too, seeing as she’ll depend on God for the rest of her life. I pray she will follow the narrow path to life and not the wide path to destruction.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed. “I pray the same for Harmony.”

Just then, the train lurched to a stop and most of the passengers began to get off. I recognized a few who worked in the World Trade Center. The woman and my family stood up and began to get off the train. As we stepped off, I asked the woman, “What’s your name?”

“Kalara Loans,” the woman responded briefly, taking her child from my arms and walking off in the direction of the Trade Center.

“Come on, Candace,” my father called, gesturing to me to hurry.

Stowing my drawing and pencils in my gradient purple-and-pink pack and picking up Harmony, I ran after him.

*  *  *

After Harmony was dropped off at the Children’s Discovery Center and my father was settled in his office on the 80th floor of the North Tower, I sat down in a lounge chair in a lobby near his office and sketched for a while. When I got tired of drawing, I would stand up and look out the window at the cars driving by and the people parading on the sidewalks. They all seemed like mini action figures from this high up. Sometimes I would gaze at the Statue of Liberty and her faint reflection wavering in the water.

And then, at 8:46 a.m., it happened.

I was attempting to sketch the Statue of Liberty’s face when there came a sharp explosion and boom from very close by. The whole building began to vibrate and sway. Shocked, I fell backward to the floor and my pencils rolled everywhere. A lady helped me up and scrabbled to pick up my pencils, but then a large vase fell off a nearby table, shattering to pieces on the floor. Frightened, the lady stood up and ran out of the lounge without ever looking back, jerking me with her. I didn’t know what was going on, but I didn’t ask. I was too scared.

I was freaked by what I saw in the hallway. The ceiling was dropping. Right over our heads. And several people were screaming and running toward the stairs. One man was trapped under a section of the fallen ceiling. The lady pulling me with her stopped and ran over to him, deftly throwing aside the debris and checking for injuries before helping him up. I recognized him as one of Dad’s friends from our neighborhood, Daniel Jashon. I ran to him and hugged him tightly.

“Candace!” he gasped, brushing debris and plaster from his suit. “Where’s your father?!”

“I don’t know!” I said.

He took my hand and ran along the hallway with me. As we passed by a wall, I heard several people screaming on the other side of it. Daniel heard it too and ran over to the wall, pounding furiously on it with his fist. “Are you all okay?!” he shouted. I had never heard him use that tone of voice before, and it terrified me.

“We’re trapped in the elevator!” a woman shrieked. “We can’t get out!”

Daniel put his hand over his mouth, then pulled out a pocketknife and stabbed it into the wall, furiously gouging a hole in the wall. I grabbed a small but sharp wooden beam of the ceiling which had fallen and slammed it violently against the wall, causing much of the plaster to crumble. A few more rams and a small hole was revealed to see several frightened people in the elevator, their faces covered with dust and bits of wood. They stared at Daniel and I like we were mirages.

“Come on!” I yelled. “We need to get out of here!”

They all crawled though the small hole and ran after us as we pounded down the stairs. It was dark and the power kept flickering on and off as the building continued to rock and lurch. The ceiling continued to fall even as we ran, people screaming all around us. Down and around different flights of steps we went.

As we were getting closer to the end of the steps, who should show up but Mrs.  Loans herself! She handed me a wet handkerchief. “Put if over your nose and mouth,” she said quietly, but there was a fierce gleam in her eye. “So you don’t breathe in the fumes and dust and all.”

As we reached the end of the second-to-last flight of steps, I saw my father on a small landing. He was frantically talking to someone on his cell phone. I couldn’t hear who was speaking on the other end, but it sounded like he was speaking to Mom. I was shocked by his face; he looked terrified. My dad was the bravest man I knew, but he was scared now. I had never seen that side of him before.

“Dad!”  I cried out above the screams and rumblings.

He looked up and saw me on the landing above. His face changed from worry and fear to relief that I could never describe in words. I ran down to him and embraced him tightly, fearful that if I let go, he might disappear.

“Candace,” he murmured, tears filling his eyes. “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” I told him, trying to reassure him. I could see how concerned he had been.

Daniel and Mrs. Loans were right beside him when the building started to shake even harder. “John!” Daniel said sharply. “We need to get out of here! Now!”

Dad grabbed my hand and rushed me out of the building as fast as we could go. As we ran for the exit, I suddenly realized my wrist felt strangely light. I was missing my bracelet!

“Dad, my bracelet!” I  cried out in despair, pointing back toward the building.

“No time, Candace,” he said breathlessly, and sprinted with me out of the building. Daniel and Mrs. Loans were following suit.

Just as we reached the sixth block, far away enough to be safe from the swaying building, it collapsed. The Trade Center crashed down into a heap of rubble, and thick black smoke and flames partially enveloped it. People were jumping out of the windows and horrible shrieks could be heard from everywhere. Sirens were screaming and ambulance lights were flashing wildly.

“It’s gone,” I moaned. “The Trade Center. . .”

Dad grabbed my hand and together we knelt in the street. “Thank You,” he whispered, his voice trembling. Tears ran down his face. “Thank you for rescuing us, Lord.”

 

“Thank You,” I echoed. But I felt numb. My brain was screaming. My mind still couldn’t comprehend what we had just been rescued from. It would take me years to fully understand that I had been spared from dying a horrible death.

*  *  *

Later that day, I learned the South Tower had collapsed and that American Airlines Flight 77 had crashed into the Pentagon. Another plane, Flight 93, had crashed in a field outside of Pittsburgh.

Harmony and Authy were safe. They had been evacuated from the daycare when the first plane crashed and all the kids were safe. But nearly 3,000 people died that day. I felt the losses deeply. I learned that one of my friends’ fathers, who was a firefighter, had gone inside to rescue people when the North Tower crashed. He never came out again. My friend was devastated.

My father met up with my mother and baby sister near a small store a few miles from the Trade Center. Many victims of the collapse who had survived were with us, including Daniel and Mrs. Loans. My mom was worried sick about Harmony and I; she consistently asked us if we were okay, was anyone hurt, did you breathe in anything harmful. My dad was too overwhelmed to answer; and I was too tired and anxious. Harmony looked confused by all the action.

“What in the world happened?” my mother demanded. “How did the Towers fall?”

“Planes crashed into it,” I said in a small voice. “But we don’t know why.”

*  *  *

Two days later, a firefighter showed up at our door. I walked to the front door and answered the quiet chimes of the doorbell. “Yes?” I said, drawing my brows down.

“I was helping clean the rubble at the Trade Center,” he said, his voice filled with wonder, “and I found this.” He reached in his pocket and held out a pearl bracelet with silver cross charms. I stared in shock. It was my bracelet I had lost!

“It’s not even scratched.” His voice was trembling. “How can that be?”

I stared at the bracelet for the longest time, and then the smallest smile crept across my face. I knew the answer.

“Because hope can be never be marred,” I said with a slight excitement in my tone.

He looked at me a moment. I looked back at him. He was dirty, and his uniform was layered with soot. I wondered how many he was forced to rescue from beneath the debris only to find many were not living. Tears filled his eyes.

I slipped on my bracelet, then held out my hand to him. “Won’t you come in,” I asked, “and hear the Gospel?”

Wordlessly, he stepped inside.

*  *  *

Many days later, on September 20, President George W. Bush identified Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centers. Though I was glad they had found the crooks, I knew that many lives had been changed in the blink of an eye. Life would never be the same for anyone.

At first, I hated those killers. I dreamed of sneaking into a spy plane and tracking them down one day, stabbing them to death and getting revenge for what they had done to America. But the Lord spoke to my heart, telling me such thoughts were not of His nature and nor should be of mine. I repented and prayed fro the killers instead.

And you know what?

In time,  I found I was able to forgive them.

A few weeks later, I did a school paper telling about the World Trade Center and how I was able to forgive the killers. Many of my classmates were shocked, but I told them that only Jesus could give someone a heart of love. Many of them also learned to forgive the hijackers and went on to become great godly men and women.

*  *  *

Twenty years later, I was in an interview. The woman reporter was asking me about the World trade Attack and what I had thought about it.

“Yes,” I said. “I was seven years old when it happened. I was in the North Tower.”

“But you escaped,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “My whole family did.”

The woman asked a few more questions. Then she concluded with her final question: “And what do you think about all those who died in the attacks?”

I thought about that a moment. Then an image came to my mind: I was standing at two twin pools near the Twin Towers. The name of the victims in the attack were engraved on the bricks around the pools. As I looked at my reflection, I saw not myself, nor a burning tower with screaming people leaping out the windows to safety, but rather a pearl bracelet with silver charms, not burned, nor scratched, nor marred. Jesus had been with us all, even in the attack. He had allowed me and many others to forgive the hijackers, even at their most unlovable.

I came back to the present. “They are all heroes,” I said with a fierce passion. “They did what was right and tried to help others, even when they knew they would die. There is no greater glory for a hero than seeing them reach out in action to help others over themselves. Jesus did the same and those heroes followed His loving example. Jesus is my Hero, and everyone who died saving many is a hero.”

As I finished, I twisted my pearl bracelet around my wrist, the tarnished charms catching the brilliantly beaming lights.