Dear Professor Smith,

You do not know this about me but now is the time. Remember me? I was the homeless girl on Broadway you passed every day on your way to work. You did not see me but I saw you. Your blonde straight hair. Your lovely clothes. Your smart fashionable eyeglasses.

But then on that awful 9-11 day you did see me. Remember? The death cloud from tower two was choking up the avenues and you stopped and saw me, frozen in my place on the curb. You grabbed my arm and hauled me under a parked car where we cried, clinging to one another like mother and child, wondering if the world was coming to an end. Waiting for the death cloud to pass. Remember? The little black girl with her hair in braids, my face as white as yours covered in building ash?

God sent you that day or I would be dead now.  I never forgot you and staggered home for the first time in months to my mother. My father and brother had been killed in recent gang violence, which was why I ran away and was homeless.  After 9-11, I applied myself in school and eventually earned a scholarship to NYU. Where you teach. Me. Creative writing. Yes, I am THAT girl in the front row and I will love you forever and make you very proud someday. Yes I will.

Love,

Charmaine