Nine Eleven: A Dedication to the Memory of Lashawana Johnson and Margaret Mattic

It is a beautiful September morning, much like the September morning nine years ago when planes flew into the World Trade Center, where I had been just three weeks prior for  a job interview. The photo-id posted above was taken moments before that interview at General Telecom Inc.
It had been a brutally hot Tuesday morning, and upon my arrival at the interview, a woman who introduced herself as Margaret Mattic (the receptionist), offered me a cup of cold water. Another woman, Lashawana Johnson, who interviewed me was very young, and she told me how she loved coming to the World Trade Center early in the morning to shop on the ground floor for her three children before heading up to work. As soon as I heard the news that airplanes had flown into the towers, I imagined Lawansha was there since she loved early morning before heading up the elevator from General Telecom Inc. Lawansha had not hired me for the position, and she had let me know this by having someone from the night shift — a woman named Carmen — phone me to let me know I had not been selected for the position. Because this interview was only three weeks before the attack on the World Trade Center, I still had my notes on circumstances that occurred, and I still had my WTC ID, therefore, I was ultimately able to track down Carmen.

Once I reached Carmen, she informed me that she lived in Brooklyn, in an apartment with a view of the Twin Towers, and had seen the planes fly into them, murdering all her morning co-workers at General Telecom Inc. This included Margaret Mattic and Lawansha Johnson. Over the years, I've gone to see their names printed in the squares of The September Eleventh Patchwork Quilt  at The Folk Art Museum in New York City and I've listened for their names being read in radio coverage of September 11th memorial services. Today, my morning's posting is to pay homage to their friends and loved ones with an image of a single rose from my garden.