On September 11, 2001 my father, Anthony Mazurek, was on a business trip at the FedEx headquarters in Memphis, TN. His trip began ominously the night before: a man who sat beside him on the airplane unfolded a large knife from his pocket–a gesture that was both subtle and threatening. Over the next 24 hours, the attacks in New York, D.C. and Pennsylvania would send my father and his three co-workers on a surreal two day, 900+ mile road-trip home to their families. Their path would take them through remote and economically distressed areas of the Deep South, ultimately leading them to a series of heart-wrenchingly beautiful moments; kindness unfolded from tragedy.

I learned about my father’s journey nearly a decade later as a 21 year old student attending SMFA/Tufts University. My Dad, who was on yet another business trip, took me out to dinner and our conversation brought us back to September 11th. To discover what he went through and how deeply it affected him so long after the events initially transpired, immediately invoked an overwhelming sense of guilt–it made me realize my own selfishness. Providing for our family, making sacrifices to give my siblings and I a better life, is what sent him away from us on these trips in the first place. Our conversation made me realize that I’d never taken the time, I’d never asked what he’d been through after he finally returned home to us in 2001. The older I become, the more humbled I am by the magnitude of my parents’ love for their children; I realize their selflessness in ways I never did before.

I am translating these ideas and emotions into a multimedia project that uses my Dad’s experience on 9/11/01 as a catalyst to examine parent-child relationships and how they evolve as each get older. The project's main narrative element is a road trip my Dad and I just returned from: on 9/11/16 we journeyed together from Memphis to Baltimore, the very same route he took 15 years ago.