This isn’t a story about healing. It’s not about politics or war. It’s simply a story about someone I used to know.

It’s odd that I can vividly remember so much about that day, but I can’t remember how I found out about Marty – only that he was in one of the Towers.

He was three years younger than me and was tight with many of my friends’ little brothers. Almost all of our interactions happened on the basketball court. I saw him at camps and when he was hanging around the gym. He watched my games. Once he reached high school he asked me to play him. I knew he was good, but I figured I’d teach him a few things and send him on his way.

Basketball, especially one-on-one, has a way of breaking things down and making them simple. A lucky shot may save you once in a while, but in the end the better player almost always wins and this much was clear: I was in trouble. Employing every trick, every move, every little crafty advantage I had at my disposal kept me in the game, but I couldn’t stop him and he knew it.

I avoided playing Marty again -- who wants to be shown up by a freshman? -- but after I graduated I would periodically check in on him from afar. He was an excellent high school player, good enough to get a scholarship to a Division I school. I rarely saw him in those years. Basketball was our entire relationship, but it was enough to sustain one.

More than movies, music or other forms of entertainment, sports have taken center stage on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. In recent days, people have tried to make sense of why they matter so much. They’re an escape, obviously, and there’s a communal aspect to our games, but perhaps it’s simply because they offer a kind of resolution when so much of what happened that day is still so difficult to grasp.

*****

I was living in Philadelphia at the time and scheduled to cover the Eagles, which was exactly the kind of thing that mattered far less than it had some 10 minutes before. My mind started racing, but then instincts took over. Showered and out the door in record time with a notebook, I started walking. I went to the site of the Liberty Bell, which seemed to make sense, and made small-talk with a cityside reporter.

Neither of us had any idea what was going on. No one did. Was it still happening, were we next? Next for what, exactly?

I went to the train station and tried to talk to glassy-eyed commuters. No one took me up on my offer. Some brushed me off. Some just stared. No locker room has ever been that tense or that quiet.

It wasn’t until later that night that the fear took over. I grew up in Jersey and knew a lot of people who lived or worked in New York. Marty was one of them. He was 23 years old.

There was a moment during the funeral that will always stay with me. A young woman was speaking and the emotion was overwhelming to everyone. Finally, she collected herself and said simply, “What am I supposed to do now.”

In my mind, those words have hung in the air forever. It wasn’t really a question and no one could have possibly answered it anyway. I think about it often, usually whenever life gets inconvenient, but for me it will never be resolved.

I wouldn’t presume to tell anyone how to feel on Sunday. My plan is to be as far away from it as I can possibly get, probably up in the mountains somewhere. Far away from the television, Twitter, the flyovers, the solemn vigils and even the games.

Mostly, I just want to think about Marty; gone in a cruel instant. I wish I had the chance to play him again, if only for the kind of clarity and resolution that a game of one-on-one can provide.