Ten Years Later

How is it possible that 9/11 was 10 years ago today? I remember after it happened, someone said: You will never forget what you were doing when you heard the news. And that is so true. Whenever 9/11 comes up in conversation, people always talk about where they were when they heard of the planes hitting the Twin Towers.

I had just started Freshman year at Pope and was in 1st period Spanish with Senora. Lewis--a semi-loopy, strong Christian, Spanish teacher that I later had for homeroom my Sophomore and Junior years. We had taken our first test of the semester, my first test of high school, and were working on flashcards for the next chapter. Dr. Stowers came over the intercom to announce that the first building had been hit and immediately, Senora Lewis turned on the news. Dr. Stowers son had been in New York and saw the North Tower get hit and called his mother, which she then passed on the news for us to turn on our televisions. Most of us were unaware of the gravity of what was going on, but Sra Lewis was on the ball with what Al-Queda was and explained to us that she presumed this was a terrorist attack. She wrote over the board information that I knew nothing or little about. The bell rang and we were off to 2nd period with hallways buzzing of what was going on.

I was in Coach Griffin's geography class and as I walked in, the 2nd tower was hit. I was furious when another student in the class was laughing just before it was hit because they thought someone had accidentally run into the building. Once the plane collided with the second tower, the fact that I was watching this happen live seemed surreal to me. I remembered watching the assassination of Kennedy in classes, seeing documentaries on Martin Luther King's death, but that kind of stuff happened in some other lifetime, not mine. We watched in awe as the towers separately collapsed, with a lack of  words that expressed our fear, confusion, and overwhelming sadness for everyone that was trapped inside the buildings and surrounding.

My 3rd period Algebra teacher upset me the most, how she reacted still infuriates me today. She refused to let us watch TV and insisted that there would not be any new news to happen in the 90 minutes we had class and that we ought to keep learning Algebra because the "world was still spinning" in her words. Even at 14, I knew that that day was a huge deal and not to be taken lightly. She disregarded emotions that people had for family that lived in New York. I had just found out that because my dad works at Nuclear Power Plants for the Dept of Energy, they had to evacuate. And she could have cared less.

My last class of the day was band. I have to say that I was impressed by how Mr. Gribble, our band director, handled the tragedy by asking us questions about how we were feeling and allowing us to ask questions, like "Does this mean that we're going to war?" I was at home with my band friends and that seemed like the comfort I needed to have. I do remember being shocked when they cancelled all after school activities that afternoon and for the rest of the week. We thought that surely band practice was the exception--we were supposed to practice the rotating block drill that afternoon. (You will only truly appreciate that reference if you marched that year...please excuse my band nerdiness.)

I couldn't stomach to watch the news all afternoon because it just tied my stomach in knots to think of the people in those buildings. The weeks to follow, some of my favorite clips to watch were the ones of the firemen rescuing people, heroic citizens that helped strangers, and especially the stories of people that should have been there, but due to circumstances, like sleeping in, missing the Subway, or whatever else, they weren't.

I don't have anything especially eloquent to say in this post, but by remembering what I was doing that day, it helps me to keep in check that that day was real--that that day was a normal week day until that plane was hijacked, and this tragedy happened to real people with families, and still affects our country today. There are few days that I feel particularly patriotic (don't get me wrong, I love our country...but not in the overwhelming, I want to get excited about it all the time kind of way), but every year around 9/11 and especially now a decade later, I remember the sense of camaraderie that we all felt that day and the days following. And I hope we never forget that feeling out of respect and memory of those lost.

What were you doing when the planes crashed?