Today, on the fourteenth anniversary of September 11th, the day millions of Americans vowed to never forget, I looked around for signs that we had remembered. Maybe because it’s the first September 11th I’ve spent outside New York since that awful day, the signs of remembrance seemed less. I moped about it until I saw a posting on Facebook by one of my neighbors in our old Long Island neighborhood. Her son was having a replica of the well-known photo of first responders raising Old Glory over the rubble of the Trade Center tattooed on his arm. Someone had remembered – and would be forever unable to forget.

My thoughts drifted again to my son Chris’s college roommate, Paul Battaglia. Back in 1997, they and three other boys had scored the best suite in their dorm at Binghamton University. With three bedrooms and a good-sized living space, the five boys were thrilled. Except Paul. When I first met Paul, it was in the room he would share with another boy. He was going from one wall to another, pounding as if in an effort to push the walls out, and yelling, “It’s too small!”

Future encounters with Paul were less intense, making him among my favorites of my son’s friends. He was a brilliant kid from Brooklyn who had graduated from Regis High School, a tuition-free Jesuit college preparatory school for young Roman Catholic men from the New York metropolitan area who demonstrate superior intellectual and leadership potential. Binghamton, considered the best and most competitive of New York State’s public colleges, is another academic feather in its students’ caps. The school is famous for the quality of education given the affordable price. For many years, it has been ranked as one of the top 10 best-valued public colleges.

I met the other four boys, but the one who stood out in my mind was Paul. When Chris was panicking over a particularly hard test, Paul was always willing to study with him.  When my son was clueless over how to purchase his first suit for his first job interview, I simply said, “Ask Paul to go with you. You’ll be fine.” That was sixteen years ago. Chris still has the suit.

I remember Paul visiting us at our home on Long Island. When he was ready to drive home, it was very foggy. “You can stay as long as you like,” I told him. “Wait until the fog lifts. Be safe.”

Paul was very proud of his job on the 100th floor of the south tower. His cubicle was set beside a window, and he posted pictures on his primitive website of planes flying below his window and views that went on forever.

Paul was in that cubicle the morning of 9-11-01. I wondered if he pushed against the windows trying to increase his space. I know that the darkness that surrounded him made the fog that hung over our neighborhood when he visited beyond insignificant. I wondered if he jumped.

A lot has happened since 9-11-01. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The human tragedy of Syria. The horror that is ISIS. So much more death and disfigurement. The building of a “freedom tower” on what I feel is hallowed ground that should never again be used for commercial purposes; a tower that silently screams “Hit me again.”

On this anniversary of that terrible day, I wonder where all those who swore they would never forget have gone.