Twenty five years later: 9/11 gave me a life to keep, but it still haunts me

Angel Rodriguez work ID while he worked for Keefe, Bruyette in 2001 at World Trade Center, Tower Two. Photo credit, Angel Rodriguez.

I arrived at work around 8:30 on Sept 11, 2001. Nothing felt unusual. I took the PATH into lower Manhattan and went to my office at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods on the 88th floor of Tower Two.

I wasn’t thinking about terrorism, life and death, or whether I would see my family again. I was thinking about breakfast.

I put a bagel in the toaster.

Twenty-five years later, that small detail stays with me because it represents the life I had before everything changed. I believed this was simply another Tuesday, not knowing that within minutes, I would be running for my life.

Then the building shook violently beneath me. The explosion thundered through the tower, rattling the walls, shattering the ordinary rhythm of the morning, and sending a jolt of terror through my body.

As I approached the conference room windows, sheets of office paper spiraled through the air, some fluttering white, others curling at the edges, blackened and burning. Tower One was on fire. Sparks and flames sputtered from the building as my eyes focused on a gaping hole that tore through its side, exposing dark, shattered flooring and twisted steel.

My mind searched for an ordinary explanation. Then I remembered 1993—the World Trade Center had been attacked; something shifted.

I need to leave.

I believe now that the Lord was leading my every decision. Unaware that Tower One was hit by a plane, or that another one was coming towards us, I sprang into the corridor. I simply felt an urgency I could not ignore.

Leave this building.

I ran through the hallways, banging on doors and yelling, “Get out! There’s been a bomb! Leave the building!”

At the stairwell, coworkers were already pouring down from the 88th floor. At first, we moved quickly, but somewhere around the 70th floor, the crowd thickened. Running became walking, then one step at a time.

I remember thinking, I’m never going to get out of here. Wait, the express elevators!

I turned around and went back up toward the express elevators. Hundreds of people were moving down while I pushed upward.

As I pushed my way back to the 75th floor, an announcement came over a loudspeaker: "Tower Two is secure, and people can return to their offices."

Everything inside me said no!

Keep moving!

Exhausted, afraid, and emotionally charged, I squeezed into an elevator.

Ground level! 

Firefighters, police, and dazed employees filled the lobby.

Confusion! 

As I gasped for fresh air, I was met with debris falling from Tower One.

Police directed people away from the towers. Frantically, I searched for a telephone, found one, and called home.

“I need to leave,” I said. “I don’t feel safe here.”

My son Aaron was only a year and eight months old. More than anything, I needed to see him. I needed to hold him.

I stepped back outside. People were staring upward. Someone said, “Oh my God. People are jumping out the window.”

Then came another explosion.

Tower Two.

My building.

The second plane had hit.

There was screaming, purses, cell phones hitting the pavement; once-valued possessions now seemed trivial in the face of death. 

Get away. Keep moving. Run.

I saw what looked to me like part of a jet engine lying in the street.

I could barely process it. Then suddenly a man grabbed my arm, glazed-eyed. “It’s like a movie,” he repeated. “It’s like a movie.”

I grabbed him.

“We need to leave now.”

Two strangers running together until I lost him in the crowd.

To this day, I hope he still made it home.

Eventually, I found my way toward New Jersey. On a crowded train, someone looked toward Manhattan and said, “Tower Two fell.”

Tower Two was gone.

Looking from across the river, only one building was standing. 

The building where I had started my morning, left a bagel in a toaster, and greeted my coworkers at their desks.

Gone.

Covered in rubble, I boarded the NJ Transit bus. "Where are you coming from?"

"World Trade." She looked at me and said words I have carried for twenty-five years:

“God saved you for a purpose.”

At the time, I couldn't accept them. I did not feel special or heroic. I felt exhausted, dirty, afraid, and confused. I only wanted to get home.

Eventually I reached my car and drove home.

All day my body had been telling me one thing: run.

Run through the office. Run down the stairs. Get out of Manhattan. Find a train. Find a bus. Walk. Drive. Get home.

Then I opened my front door and saw my son.

I took Aaron into my arms. He did not understand terrorism or know his father had spent the morning running for his life. He simply knew Daddy was home.

He placed his little hand against my chest and began tapping.

Again.

Again.

Again.

His hand seemed to say, Daddy, you’re safe now. You can stop running.

My body stopped running that day.

Part of me kept running for years.

September never completely left me. As the anniversary approaches, I can still become quiet and withdrawn. Grief, gratitude, anger and fear sometimes arrive together. Beneath them has often been survivor’s guilt.

Why did I get out? Why did I ignore the announcement? Why was I outside when the second plane struck? Why did I get to hold my son when so many people did not?

There is no answer that makes that fair.

My survival does not mean my life was more valuable. I have learned that gratitude and grief can live in the same heart. I can thank God I survived and still ache for those who did not.

Months later, a man who had worked in our mailroom called me. He was crying. He told me he had heard someone running through the halls, banging on doors, and yelling for people to leave.

“Because of you, I’m alive today,” he said.

I did not remember him. But he remembered my voice, and because he listened, he went home.

That call changed something in me.

Perhaps purpose sometimes happens before we understand that we are living it.

Life after September 11 was not painless. There were wounds, heartbreak, and years of healing. I learned that surviving trauma and healing from it are not the same thing.

Later, God brought my now wife into my life. She saw not only the man in front of her, but what he carried. Through our faith and healing, we began helping couples walk through brokenness, repair, and restoration. 

Over time, I began to see a connection.

On September 11, I ran through Tower Two, banging on doors, trying to help people get out.

Maybe, in a very different way, I never stopped.

Today, the dangers are different: unresolved trauma, bitterness, betrayal, fear, and wounds that keep people trapped in cycles destroying what matters most.

Now I try to help people find a way out—and find their way home.

Home to their families.
Home to covenant.
Home to healing.
Home to God.

I do not claim to completely understand God’s plan. There are still Septembers that hurt. But I am beginning to understand that I do not honor those who died by feeling guilty that I lived. I honor life by being responsible with the life I have.

I did not earn September 12, 2001.

It was given to me.

Then September 13.

Then another day. And another.

Twenty-five years later, I am still here. Still remembering. Still healing.

Maybe surviving was not the purpose.

Maybe surviving gave me the opportunity to live out the purpose.

On September 11, I spent the day desperately trying to get home.

Perhaps part of what I am meant to do with the life I was given is help other people find their way home too.

What do I do with a life I was given the opportunity to keep?

I use it.

And I thank God that I’m still here.