Even five years later my spirit grieves for my city, and my friend, Port Authority Officer John Lennon.

I keep thinking that each passing year will make seeing images of that day eaiser. They do not. They have not softened the edges of what I witnessed happen to my city, to my friends.

My memories of New York were sweet. I remember taking the Fifth Avenue bus home from school, which was on fifth and fifty-fourth. The Rhodes School. I would stop at Gristedes and pick up a pack of Yankee Doodles and walk the rest of the way to our apartment in Stuyvesant Town - we lived in one of the buildings on fourteenth street and Avenue A.

DiRoberti's cannoli were the best in the City and my mom, dad and myself would wander the streets in a walk after dinner when the weather was warm. My friend Valerie and I rode the Roosevelt Island tram when they first built it. It was exhilirating. We wandered the rocks by the East River on the island side.

Even as I grew older and, theoretically, wiser, the city never lost its allure. I would visit often and stayed with my mother's friend when I was in law school. Parts of it were dangerous then - gentrification had not yet taken off. Some neighborhoods you simply did not visit...even if you lived there.

Some local kids tried to heist my unicycle...while I was on it. I laid down and refused to turn it over because, hey, I just learned to ride it. Give me a break. At least wait a few days before you jack me for it. They left and said they would be back...but they never were. My friend Chris' big brother took off after them, but they crossed the street into their neighborhood.

Yep, neighborhoods. The sense of belonging. Even where nobody wanted to know your business, they knew your business. You messed up and the merchant came to visit your parents. School kept track of you, too.

Magical memory that I still see when I am feeling down: it had snowed really hard while we were in school. We were let out early, but my friend, Bret the Brit, invited me, my friend J.P., and the boy I was in love with, Doug Berger (who looked every bit like Peter Frampton only taller) to his house on the other side of Central Park.  

The lights had an orangeish glow in the blizzard as we walked across pristine softball fields and up the small ridge to cross the street to Bret's house. He lived in the posh neighborhood and told us his mom managed or had something to do with Liza Minelli's career. All I recall was my stomach in knots as I sat no further than a few feet from Doug who kept staring at me.

We listened to Led Zeppelin and hung out until J.P. reminded me I still had to catch the bus home. I did not know then that he liked me...that way. I walked down a long corridor and Doug came up behind. I turned. He ran his hand across my cheek and kissed me...just like that. Wow.

Yes, my city. I walked on air, rode under the city streets, and made the urban jungle my playground. Then my parents moved back to Chicago, opening a whole new chapter in my life.

When I witnessed those planes striking the towers, I cried. Others screamed. It was pure chaos. Who was John Lennon? A Port Authority Police Officer who worked with me when I was a prosecutor. As did 26 others who died that day.

As far as I was concerned, the city I knew as "my city" died that day. Rudy Giuliani was right. The city would never be the same. Parts of it whose seediness lent character have become a big Mc-nightmare tourist trap. But parts of it make the city look better, sort of...in a Tokyo kind of way.

The people I knew personally who lost their lives that day remain forever in my thoughts. I thank John for his awesome chocolates and wry sense of humor he always brought to court. I still carry the prized "favor card" he gave me in 2001. The year he left for a desk job.

The deep part about growing up in a big city is you tend to know a lot of people. And when those people serve in the way police officers and firefighters do, in the back of your mind you, too, pray they will return home safe. And part of you knows that is not always possible in light of what they do and where they do it.

Tomorrow I will wear a bit of sadness. I will say prayers. And I will hope this never happens again. I grieve for my city, it is still part of me and always will be. But I will never return to live, only to visit.