Melissa Harrington Hughes<\/strong> died at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t work there; she was on a business trip for her San Francisco-based technology firm<\/strong>.\u00a0She was an extremely accomplished 31-year-old, who had traveled the world and had been married her sweetheart, Sean Hughes, for the past year.<\/p>\n On that fateful morning she was attending\u00a0a meeting on the 101st floor of the North Tower<\/strong> when the first plane struck just 6 floors below her.\u00a0 Many people remember her for the harrowing voicemail<\/strong> that she left Sean minutes after the building was struck.\u00a0\u00a0 In that voicemail she said, \u201cSean, it\u2019s me. I just wanted to let you know I love you and I am stuck in this building in New York. A plane hit or a bomb went off \u2013 we don\u2019t know, but there\u2019s a lot of smoke and I just wanted you to know I love you always<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n The first time I heard Melissa\u2019s voicemail, Sean was speaking to\u00a0Chris Jansing\u00a0on MSNBC and played the recording on air<\/strong>.\u00a0 Ms. Jansing\u00a0completely broke down upon hearing it.\u00a0 Clearly, Melissa\u2019s final words resonated with a lot of people.\u00a0 The internet site dedicated to Melissa filled with posts from people who were touched\u00a0by her story.\u00a0 I was among them. When the buildings collapsed I thought about all of the\u00a0people that\u00a0worked for my company in those towers. \u00a0 Three of our employees died that day but\u00a0Melissa was the one that stood out<\/strong>. Somehow, amongst the overwhelming tales of tragedy, her story\u00a0elicited\u00a0the strongest emotions from me.\u00a0 But why?<\/p>\n I suppose that, in part, I could relate to her on some level.\u00a0 I was also employed by a large Bay Area-based firm\u00a0and had spent most of my adult life working in San Francisco.\u00a0 At one point I made several business trips to\u00a0NYC to meet with staff\u00a0housed in the North tower<\/strong> at the World Trade Center.\u00a0 I remember\u00a0navigating the unusual elevator and escalator systems in that building as I rushed to early morning meetings, just as she must have done.\u00a0\u00a0I was also struck by\u00a0Melissa’s beautiful wedding picture taken up in Napa, California,<\/strong> close to where I grew up.\u00a0 I knew that she had appreciated what a special part of the country that is.\u00a0But it was more than the similar business trips and her picture that stayed with me; it was her voicemail to Sean<\/strong> that was seared into my brain.<\/p>\n In her voice I could sense\u00a0so many of her emotions: fear, panic, bewilderment<\/strong>.\u00a0 But mostly, in her final\u00a0minutes on earth, she wanted Sean to know that she loved him.\u00a0 I thought about her, and all of the\u00a0people that\u00a0died that day, who went off to work as they normally did.\u00a0 Kissing a spouse or child good-bye, grabbing a cup of coffee, making plans for the weekend ahead.\u00a0 And none of them came home<\/strong>.\u00a0 Plans and hopes and dreams were gone in an instant.\u00a0 Sean Hughes said that he and Melissa were excited about their future and talked about all the things that newlyweds do: moving to a new home, getting a dog, having children.<\/p>\n Her final\u00a0words to Sean started me thinking about my own life.\u00a0 My husband had taken early retirement in 1996.\u00a0 He wanted to travel, spend time with our new grandson, and enjoy time with friends.\u00a0 I had wanted to continue working.\u00a0 But I kept thinking about Melissa\u2019s message<\/strong>.\u00a0 What if that had been me?\u00a0 Is that how I would want my life to end, without ever having enjoyed what my husband and I had worked so hard to build?<\/p>\n The weeks following September 11 were frightening and incredibly busy for me.\u00a0 My division of the company had locations throughout the United States and for weeks after the twin towers fell we received bomb threats in\u00a0our major office buildings<\/strong>. Of course, all of them were false but that didn’t lessen the hysteria of my employees who were in those buildings.\u00a0 I understood – my office was\u00a0on the top floor of our Los Angeles headquarters and I jumped every time I\u00a0 heard a plane or helicopter<\/strong> go by.\u00a0 After a month or so, I began to hope that the turmoil would pass and that my life would get back to \u201cnormal\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 But then I thought about Melissa.\u00a0 Life doesn\u2019t get scripted.\u00a0 I knew that the\u00a0odds of\u00a0being killed in a terrorist attack might be low, but there were\u00a0no guarantees that I could escape a car accident or a terminal illness.<\/p>\n So the first week of November, after the\u00a0initial\u00a0frenzy had died down, I told my boss that I wanted to resign.\u00a0<\/strong> We negotiated that I would stay until March 1, which I did.\u00a0 I have never regretted that decision and would not trade all of the memories and experiences I\u2019ve had since then for any amount of compensation I gave up.<\/p>\n The author Judith Viorst once wrote that it is the small moments<\/strong> in life that make it rich. \u00a0 Melissa made me realize that I needed to grab the small moments while I could; that sitting with my husband every morning, sipping coffee and watching the news, is a gift not to be squandered or go unappreciated.<\/p>\n So to Melissa Harrington Hughes: thank you.\u00a0 Someday I hope to get back to the new September 11 Memorial\u00a0where I will touch the steel engraving of your name.\u00a0 And in the hollows of those letters, we will finally be connected.<\/p>\n 2016 Update<\/strong>:\u00a0 This past March I went to New York with my niece and her two daughters.\u00a0 Visiting the National September 11 Memorial and Museum was one of our highlights (I wrote about it in The Museum of Sadness and Strength <\/a>post).\u00a0 I read that buying tickets in advance was key so on February\u00a024 I went on to their website to\u00a0order ours.\u00a0 On that same day<\/strong> <\/em>I received an email that someone had commented on my original post about Melissa.\u00a0 I thought that was a coincidence\u00a0– that maybe something that I had typed in the computer had caused an old comment to be recirculated.\u00a0 But it wasn’t an old comment\u00a0 – it was this: \u00a0“I\u00a0came across your blog after my son and I just prepared an required oral presentation for his English class about a life event of mine that had great impact. I think of Melissa almost every day –\u00a0 I was her best friend since childhood. <\/i>\u00a0She was a shining light and people were drawn to her. I miss her and the memories are still clear with detail. Thank you for seeing how her passion, love for life, and love for her husband and family was that shining light, even if it was her last words. She called her Dad and Mom and Sean from that burning building because she loved them deeply. She is well remembered and will never be forgotten.” \u00a0<\/em>I still get chills when I read this note and think about the timing of it.\u00a0 There are no coincidences in life, of that I am sure.<\/p>\n By Suzanne Sparrow Watson Today, on the 15th anniversary of 9\/11, I am posting\u00a0the memorial I wrote on the 10 year anniversary\u00a0with updates on a surreal encounter and a promise kept. Her message was my wake-up call.\u00a0 She inspired me … read more![\"melissa](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/melissa-harrington-hughes.jpg\")
<\/a>Her message was my wake-up call.\u00a0 She inspired me and changed my life forever.\u00a0Yet I never met her.<\/p>\n![\"MHH](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/MHH-North-Tower-Medium.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"2016-03-30](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/2016-03-30-12.06.05-Small-300x169.jpg\")
<\/a>On March 30 I was finally able to fulfill the promise to myself that I would visit Melissa’s engraving at the Memorial.\u00a0 Her name is carved into\u00a0Panel N-22\u00a0on the large reflecting pool that stands in the footprint of the former North Tower.\u00a0 I put my hand on her name and thanked her once again for all that she has meant in my life.\u00a0 May she rest in peace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"