I've lived nine years in NYC.  I wasn't in the city on THAT September 11th, having just graduated from undergrad, recovering from hernia surgery, and living in New Jersey waiting to start a new job the next week.

I never experienced it intimately, other than visiting the following November, seeing the concrete dust still in the streets.  And the odor.  I have been in necropsy labs, and worked in a meat science department so I knew what "that smell" was.  I didn't share that knowledge with my friends who were there; most people don't want to know the reality and some actively block it out or deny it.

I wasn't there that day, so I can't imagine what it must have been like for those who were, but it's a pale shadow of the reality. It is imagining a terror that those who wasn't there can't really know, the panic those felt fleeing from the building, let alone those who never made it outside.  For many who survived it was so traumatic that the psychological and emotional scars are as fresh today in memories and flashbacks from that one terrible day. I hope that all those who are dealing or not dealing with their personal grief realize that many of us are thinking of you across the  nation.  You are not alone.