Do you remember what you were doing?
Do you remember?
September 11, 2001 - I was in the fifth grade. We had just switched classes, and I walked into my English class to find the teacher crying. Crying? Seriously, what teacher cries at school? I remember thinking "If something is bothering her, she really shouldn't be at school. She should go home and deal with her stuff before coming to school all teary-eyed." I had no idea what she was crying about. However, I do remember the conversation in class that we had that morning. I remember turning on Channel 1 News for the school.
Teacher: "Some of you probably have no idea what is happening this morning. Some of you are going home early today."
Class: .... -silence-
Teacher: "This is history. Watch." -Turns on Channel 1 News.-
And then there it was. I was too young to realize what it was. All I saw was smoke. Lots of smoke. And a building on fire. I didn't know what the significance of the building was. I didn't even know what a terrorist was. How was I supposed to know that we were under attack and that the entire country was at a heightened awareness? How was I supposed to know that this was something to be afraid of? I seriously thought it was just a really tall building on fire.
I'll be honest with you. I don't think it ever really sank in about how serious an event it was.
So many people...
Children, even.
Not many, but enough. Too many.
And the death toll continues to climb, eleven years later. From Lung Diseases that are directly related to breathing in the dust and broken glass and ashes from the collapse of the towers.
Me, I remember that- like always- nobody told me Anything. I Wish one of our teachers had turned on the news. They all had their radios kept on low, and wouldn't say a word about why. When I got home from school, still nothing. The Next Year at school, on the anniversary, was when we talked about it just enough for me to figure out that someone had purposely crashed a plane into a huge building full of people, followed by another. Gee, guys. Thanks for really letting me get an appetite for History class.
ReplyDeleteDon't you love it? But I actually had dreams about it last night. Kept me up most of the night. I don't know why. I wasn't a part of it. I didn't know anything about it, detail-wise, until I did the research on it like two years ago. And every now and then I'll look up some things, to try to figure out more and more. It really is lame, because of all the things I've seen about it, yesterday I just looked up the normal pictures, but last night it just REALLY bugged me. I really don't know why.
DeleteI remember during the OKC bombing, Toya and I sat in my living room floor in Sweeny. She had EriKa in her lap and I had you in mine. We were both rocking you guys, watching the news and crying . She kept saying "All those babies." Over and over again. September 11 was my friend and trainer, Matt's birthday. We were in training at Berry Direct, in the middle of a storm, with no power. Cut off from the world. We all left early that day. I lived in the middle of the woods, alone, with no t.v. and went to sleep as soon as I got home. About 2 that afternoon my front door busted open. A few of my friends came in saying "You have no idea what's going on, do you?" I didn't, of course. They said that there had been an attack, and I remember my first words were "Gas is about to go so far up we won't be able to afford it, and may never come back down." I didn't get know how bad it was. I went to a friends house so I could watch the news. That's when it really hit. I felt horrible for what I'd said about the gas, watching the building fall. And, I kept remembering Toya, rocking EriKa, repeating "All those babies." Over and over and over.
ReplyDeleteYeah. But with 9/11 luckily it was not as many children. And the only ones involved were the ones on the planes. I'm not by any means saying it's better, but there were not as many children involved. Too many, but not as many as OKC.
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