At this exact moment 10 years ago I was sitting in my 5th grade classroom wondering why we couldn’t go down the hall to music class and why so many kids were being called down to the office for early dismissal. I remember being nervous, not because something might be wrong, but because the auditions for our elementary school percussion band were scheduled to be that day and because I was a child who took plans and scheduled events very seriously, I grew a little more nervous by the minute that they were going to be cancelled. My mind was diverted, though, as my 5th grade teacher made up for our inability to travel to the opposite end of the hallway for music by writing the chorus lyrics for the “Friends” theme song up on the overhead projector and teaching it to us. Though strange that we couldn’t leave the room, our teacher had a beautiful singing voice and we all loved to hear her sing so it was almost like a fun treat. Slowly but surely, the number of calls through the intercom from the office asking for name after name to come down and meet their parent to go home increased. The first few I guessed were coincidence and that those kids were really lucky to be able to leave school early. Time kept passing and I think about 11 or 12 kids had already left before my name was called. I gathered my things and went down the hall, totally clueless. Clueless but annoyed because I’d now have to miss those auditions if they were still going to be held. As I approached the front lobby of the school I saw my talking with a few teachers who were stationed there on duty, one of them being our music teacher. She assured me that the auditions would, be rescheduled (not to worry), and wished Dad and I well as we left the building.
We had to stop at the grocery store on our way home. Dad gave me a bit of a briefing on the events that I’d been unaware of to this point but didn’t go into more detail than necessary. Not only did he not want to scare me (I tended to get very anxious very quickly) but really, a 10-year-old is most likely not going actually understand just what exactly the course of events actually meant. And quite honestly, because it had all happened so suddenly, catching the entire world off guard, I’m not even sure he had been able to really process it all quite yet.
We picked up milk (and maybe something else that I don’t remember) and went home. Dad was in a serious mood, so I knew that what he’d told me was a real deal but it was hard for me to picture exactly what he was talking about until we walked into our house. Mom was in the living room sitting on the couch with the news on and there was continuous footage of planes hitting two tall buildings, those buildings burning up and those buildings collapsing in on themselves. Mom wasn’t saying much. Not to me at least. She may have been talking with Dad and filling him in on what had been happening since he came to get me from school, but other than that they were quiet. I was quiet. I didn’t know what to say, so I asked what I could do that day. Mom and Dad were both enraptured by these news reports and I knew at that point, though my naïve brain couldn’t quite comprehend the reality of what had just happened to the country, nor did it have the facts to really do so, that it was big. Watching these news feeds of buildings in New York City burning to the ground, and even closer to us, knowing that an important government building in DC had been flown into as well (not to mention finding out that yet another plan went down just hours up the road in Pennsylvania) gave me all the information that I needed to know that the country was in danger.
I was told that I was allowed to go outside and play, but I couldn’t leave the front yard. I went to the front door and looked outside. Our cul-de-sac was eerily quiet. Not only quiet of motion, but just quiet in general. Living so close to two airports, we almost always have airplanes flying overhead in some direction or another. Not today. The skies were silent. The street was silent. I went outside to try to play, but had a sinking feeling in my stomach the whole time and didn’t last too long out there. I found myself constantly looking skyward, constantly feeling uncomfortably unsafe. I decided that that day would be a good indoors kind of a day.
Other than that the rest of the day is a blur, if anything. I don’t remember how I filled the hours of my afternoon. I don’t remember what we had for dinner. I don’t remember my last thoughts before going to bed. All I remember is feeling in danger all day. I felt safer being in my house with my family, but I remember feeling so vulnerable. Our country was attacked in such a massive way. No one was ready for it. I didn’t understand the specifics of it. But all I knew is that we were hit. We felt it as a family. We felt it as a country. It was felt throughout the world.
Anniversaries of September 11th came and went. Every year I’ve felt that same pang of uneasiness with more and more sadness and anger added to it as I’ve gathered more and more facts. I do have to say, though, that on this 10-year anniversary I’m feeling an intensity of emotions that succeed any I’ve had to date. 10 years ago right now, as I said, I was sitting in my 5th grade classroom. 10 years later, at this very moment, I’m sitting on my couch in my NYC home, just two short miles from the site of the late World Trade Center. The person in this very position 10 years ago would have heard the explosions of the planes at impact. They would have seen billowing smoke escape from the southern end of the island. They would have felt the ground tremble 5 flights beneath them. While I played nervously in my front yard at home, they would have watched as their own backyard fell to pieces, taking with it lives of thousands of people. As we watched the television screen helplessly from our couches, they would have watched helplessly from this very rooftop the very attacks that were leaving the rest of the country and world helplessly speechless happened without control. Sitting here right now I’m overcome with thankfulness, I’m feeling incredibly blessed yet I’m saddened and frustrated. But above all else I have faith in hope. And I have my love in faith.
I never saw the World Trade Center in person. We took our first family trip to New York City during spring break of 6th grade, so the only city I’ve ever known firsthand is the one with only the memory of the towers. Yet sitting here today I feel more like a New Yorker than ever before, almost as if I’ve lived here for years, rooted in the city for longer than the short time I that I realistically have been; while I never had the opportunity to know the city before the attacks, the towers have left a lasting presence that only grows stronger by the day. The planes and their hijackers may have been able to physically destroy actual architecture and physically take lives that should never have been taken that morning, and the skyline may still seem empty even after 10 years without the towers standing solidly above the surrounding city, but everything that those buildings symbolize, all that the lives lost—and the lives saved—symbolize, cannot be shaken. This is truly a beautiful city. This is truly a beautiful country. But the magnitude and the memory of September 11, 2001 will never be released from their hearts. It will always remain in my heart.
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