It’s strange for me, and I’m sure many others, that it has been a year since the 7/7 London bombings.

It’s strange on so many levels. I remember that morning. It seems like it was a lifetime ago. I was living in Manhattan at the time, with someone I once cared deeply for. I had just woken up, and as was the unsaid ritual with us, the first one up usually read the news on the BBC site and mumbled aloud if there was anything particularly noteworthy.

That morning (it was probably midday, considering our hedonist lifestyle at the time), I was up first. I couldn’t sleep all night as that person I once cared about was returning to England that afternoon. “Good riddance,” I kept saying to myself, but I didn’t mean it. We humans find funny ways to console ourselves in times of loss.

I sat down at my desk and logged onto the BBC site. “Oh My God,” I blurted. “There’s been a terrorist attack in London.”

I read through the story and the heat started to evaporate from my body. So close to home, it was. I had built a life in London. I had family there, I had friends there. We all took the tube every day. My brother, who is a banker at Canary Wharf in London, took the tube every day. Everyone I knew in London did. I called London, called my sister-in-law and everything was fine as far as our family was concerned, but the city was in panic.

I felt so relieved. I looked outside the window of our apartment in the Lower East Side. A sixth-floor walk up on Orchard Street; our fire escape facing Chinatown’s lively Allen Street. It was raining outside. It seemed like New York was crying.

I showered and got ready and walked through the rain, silently, arm in arm, with that person I once cared about. The rain was worsening, and he protected me with his umbrella.

We sat down and ordered coffee and breakfast. I cried. And cried, and cried. It was the last breakfast I would ever have with him.

On July 7th, 2005, I lost someone that I once cared about.