The photo of the man jumping from a window of the World Trade Center Tower was the first thing I thought of when 9/11 came near this year. Mainly, I wondered what I would have done in that situation.

It's a normal day at work, when all of the sudden, the nation is under attack as terrorists fly civilian planes into skyscrapers. You're on the 70th floor of the North Tower and the chance of you making it to safety is practically nonexistent. Would you jump, so as to not prolong the inevitable? Or would you somehow grasp onto an ounce of hope that you'll make it out alive?

Clearly, that man, and some others, choose the former option. However, there were no reports of suicide on that day. It's difficult to draw a line between dying from tragic death and jumping to a tragic death; is one more noble than the other? I don't necessarily think so.

I think the saddest part about the photo is how alone that man must have felt during the time he was heading for the concrete. Would he have been thinking about his family or whether or not he was going to Heaven? I can't fathom being by myself for the last few seconds of my life on earth, but I suppose that man had come to peace with it.

If I was in his shoes, I probably would have stayed and waited for the tower to fall, because at least then, I would be surrounded by tons of other people just as frightened as I was.

Of course, in my kindergarten state of mind, all I remember from Sept. 11, 2001 is that it was my dad's birthday and I came home early because something terrible had happened. My dad, who worked for the Federal Aviation Association at the time, was worried that whatever happened would get so much worse, and I sat at home blissfully unaware of the terrorism and broken families that came from that day.