Reflection on 9/11
I was 10 years old and sitting at my desk in the 5th-grade classroom of St. Pius X Elementary School. Suddenly the PA system called for one of my classmates to go to the office because her mother was there to take her home. "What?" the classmate said. "I'm not supposed to go home early today." She headed to the office for an explanation, and didn't come back.
A few minutes later, Sister Dorothy, a 74-year-old nun who led the school's religious education, came into the room unexpectedly. "Children, we've just heard there's an emergency in New York City and in Washington. We don't know any details, but we've been told to pray for them. Everyone stand up." She lit a candle while we stood, folded our hands, and bowed our heads in prayer. I saw a tear splash down the front of my plaid jumper: that's how I found out that I was crying.
Our teacher sent us to Language Arts class across the hall, as planned. I was crying too hard, though, and I told the teacher my father worked in New York City. She sent me to the office to find out if he was all right.
Usually, students weren't allowed to call their parents from school unless there was something wrong: they'd forgotten their lunch money, or they needed to come home sick. I should've realized that something was strange when the volunteers staffing the office said, "Oh, your father's in NYC? You'd better call your mother at home, she might have heard from him." Not, "OK, call his office." They already knew he'd be evacuating.
I called our house. My mother answered. "Mom, is Daddy OK?"
My mother has a certain tone of voice. My sister always called it "Mommy's 'talking about World War II' voice." It means she feels like crying. When I heard her voice, I knew right away that something was very bad, worse than the school was letting on. She said, "Yes, I heard from Dad. He's all right. There's been an attack on the Twin Towers, but he's on his way home."
"OK," I said.
"Do you want me to come get you?" she asked.
She shouldn't drive if she's gonna cry. That thought floated down out of nowhere - what did I know about safe driving? I was 10! - but somehow I knew it was right. "No, Mom. You should stay off the roads. The police or the army might need to get through," I told her. I still have no idea how I came up with that.
That conversation was the first time we realized that my anxiety disorder had a weird quirk to it: I panic over nothing all the time, but when disaster strikes, I go straight through panic and out the other side into calm. Years later when I was in training to be an Emergency Medical Technician, Mom said she also thought that line was the first sign that I belonged in emergency response.
Again, I was 10.
Anyway, I headed back to class. As the hours ticked by, more and more parents came to pick up their children, and each one brought us some information. By lunchtime, we'd heard that the towers had fallen. By recess, I was one of four people left in the 5th grade. Our teacher canceled all lesson plans and read a short story about the Iditarod out loud instead.
When school ended, my mother was outside. She was talking to another parent, even smiling a little bit. It seemed totally normal. The sky was so blue. But my first question was, "What happened?"
She explained a little on the way home, and then we watched the news for more details. I was too young to remember Oklahoma City, or the '93 WTC bombing. This was my first terrorist attack. I think I'd never heard the word terrorist before. It was scary, but again, I was 10 - I figured the adults would get this all back under control.
The TV crews on the street had only gotten a few scenes on film before the area became too dangerous, so they played that footage over and over. In one, a firefighter tried to help a woman away from Ground Zero, but she was fighting him, trying to go back. She must've been in shock. I said, "Mommy, why isn't she letting him help her get away?"
Mom said, "Maybe she's worrying about people still inside. I'd go back if you were inside." She still had her World War II tone of voice.
My sister was in middle school, and her classes ended an hour after mine. We went to get her. She came outside and said, "I heard what happened - my friend's father was there - so, the top 40 floors of the buildings are gone?"
"No," Mom said, "They're all gone."
She took us across the street to the public playground. I remember climbing up and around a particular structure that had been donated by a certain local man. It was a few days before we found out that man was already dead, his body lost in the ashes of the North Tower, his car still parked at our local commuter train station.
The three of us went home and turned on the news again. My sister and I started our homework in front of the TV. The announcers were all saying the same things - we don't know much. The same clips played over and over: one tower burned, a plane came by and hit the other, a ball of flame billowed out the opposite side. Steel groaned. Towers collapsed.
Hours ticked by. Mom heard from Dad - he'd had to take a ferry back to NJ because of the chaos, and was miles away from his car. She left to find him.
Katie left the room, and I turned the TV to Nickelodeon. Katie came back and told me we had to keep watching the news. "This is history. This is important," she insisted. She was 12.
Dad made it home sometime around 6:45, and our local church had scheduled an emergency mass for 7. "Come on, let's go to mass," he said. I was surprised. Mom came with us to church - another surprise, because she's Methodist and we're Catholic. But there was no splitting up that day.
At church I saw a classmate - the school clown - and it was the first time he didn't have a smirk on his face. He smiled at me reassuringly as he went past me in the communion line. More surprises.
After church we had dinner, finished our homework, even went outside to play a little bit in the late-summer dusk. "I wonder if in California, this is nothing," Katie said. "Maybe they're not even scared."
Later on, Dad said, "When you guys feel up to it, I want you to write down everything you felt today. It'll be important for future historians."
September 11 was a terrible, surreal day. September 12 was even weirder. The adults were all acting strange, and us kids didn't know how to handle it. My teacher told us, "Look up at recess. This is the only time in your life you'll see a sky without airplanes." Some of the boys had already heard "this is bin Laden's fault" - who? - and were ready to get even - how? Our writing teacher assigned us to write about how we felt the day before. Why is everyone so obsessed with documenting this? I wondered. Our religion teacher ordered us to write down prayers on cards that we could pin to the walls of the lobby.
I remember looking up at a whole wall full of my entire school's prayers. Some were well-wishes for specific people, loved ones who hadn't been heard from yet. Others were prayers for the army, or for the police, or for the souls of the dead. Mine said, "May God forgive the hijackers for doing what some coward told them to do."
I don't remember exactly how I came up with that.
After the initial shock wore off, I became interested in how to stop terrorism. I cried the day the US started bombing Afghanistan. My father had to tell me, "We're targeting the kinds of power plants that only take 1 or 2 people to run. Not a lot of people are getting hurt." I argued with my social studies teacher, saying we shouldn't go to war in Iraq. My parents took me to my first protest at age 13. I told the admissions officer at a local private high school that I wanted to learn Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic so I could read all the original holy texts and help people get along better. I grew up and became an EMT - which meant, if nothing else, that I could be more proactive when the Boston Marathon got bombed. I studied Arabic. I lived abroad. I tried to convince my foreign friends that the USA isn't the bully it sometimes appears to be. I tried to convince my American friends that Muslims are just people, and terrorists aren't faithful Muslims at all. I volunteered for The List Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies. I became an ESOL teacher to help refugees.
I kept praying for God to forgive the bad guys, and teach them how to be good.
That's not to say that I've never been angry, or vindictive. I know what it feels like to want revenge. The night that President Obama announced Osama bin Laden's death, my roommate and I went to Boston Common with some of our dorm mates. People were dancing and waving flags and shouting, "U-S-A! U-S-A!" It took me an hour to realize, this is wrong. We shouldn't celebrate someone's death. Ashamed, I told my friends the cigar smoke was making me sick, and got a cab back to campus.
In the end, the lesson I learned from 9/11 is that hate and fear can be destructive. I've spent the years since hoping that love can counter both. As the years go by, I've seen that most of my fellow Americans didn't learn that same lesson. I saw it when we started two major, unwinnable wars. I saw it when we stigmatized Muslims, when our law enforcement infiltrated mosques and alienated whole populations. I saw it in the federal government's reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing, and in their decisions to carry out civilian drone strikes worldwide. I saw it in our decision to elect a bigot to our highest office.
Tomorrow is Monday, September 11, 2017. It has been 16 years. I still pray constantly for God's love and God's guidance to enter our leaders' hearts, as well as the hearts of all terrorists (foreign and domestic.) I don't know how to change the tide. But tomorrow, I'll get on the subway and go to work in the Financial District of NYC. And no one will make me afraid.
A few minutes later, Sister Dorothy, a 74-year-old nun who led the school's religious education, came into the room unexpectedly. "Children, we've just heard there's an emergency in New York City and in Washington. We don't know any details, but we've been told to pray for them. Everyone stand up." She lit a candle while we stood, folded our hands, and bowed our heads in prayer. I saw a tear splash down the front of my plaid jumper: that's how I found out that I was crying.
Our teacher sent us to Language Arts class across the hall, as planned. I was crying too hard, though, and I told the teacher my father worked in New York City. She sent me to the office to find out if he was all right.
Usually, students weren't allowed to call their parents from school unless there was something wrong: they'd forgotten their lunch money, or they needed to come home sick. I should've realized that something was strange when the volunteers staffing the office said, "Oh, your father's in NYC? You'd better call your mother at home, she might have heard from him." Not, "OK, call his office." They already knew he'd be evacuating.
I called our house. My mother answered. "Mom, is Daddy OK?"
My mother has a certain tone of voice. My sister always called it "Mommy's 'talking about World War II' voice." It means she feels like crying. When I heard her voice, I knew right away that something was very bad, worse than the school was letting on. She said, "Yes, I heard from Dad. He's all right. There's been an attack on the Twin Towers, but he's on his way home."
"OK," I said.
"Do you want me to come get you?" she asked.
She shouldn't drive if she's gonna cry. That thought floated down out of nowhere - what did I know about safe driving? I was 10! - but somehow I knew it was right. "No, Mom. You should stay off the roads. The police or the army might need to get through," I told her. I still have no idea how I came up with that.
That conversation was the first time we realized that my anxiety disorder had a weird quirk to it: I panic over nothing all the time, but when disaster strikes, I go straight through panic and out the other side into calm. Years later when I was in training to be an Emergency Medical Technician, Mom said she also thought that line was the first sign that I belonged in emergency response.
Again, I was 10.
Anyway, I headed back to class. As the hours ticked by, more and more parents came to pick up their children, and each one brought us some information. By lunchtime, we'd heard that the towers had fallen. By recess, I was one of four people left in the 5th grade. Our teacher canceled all lesson plans and read a short story about the Iditarod out loud instead.
When school ended, my mother was outside. She was talking to another parent, even smiling a little bit. It seemed totally normal. The sky was so blue. But my first question was, "What happened?"
She explained a little on the way home, and then we watched the news for more details. I was too young to remember Oklahoma City, or the '93 WTC bombing. This was my first terrorist attack. I think I'd never heard the word terrorist before. It was scary, but again, I was 10 - I figured the adults would get this all back under control.
The TV crews on the street had only gotten a few scenes on film before the area became too dangerous, so they played that footage over and over. In one, a firefighter tried to help a woman away from Ground Zero, but she was fighting him, trying to go back. She must've been in shock. I said, "Mommy, why isn't she letting him help her get away?"
Mom said, "Maybe she's worrying about people still inside. I'd go back if you were inside." She still had her World War II tone of voice.
My sister was in middle school, and her classes ended an hour after mine. We went to get her. She came outside and said, "I heard what happened - my friend's father was there - so, the top 40 floors of the buildings are gone?"
"No," Mom said, "They're all gone."
She took us across the street to the public playground. I remember climbing up and around a particular structure that had been donated by a certain local man. It was a few days before we found out that man was already dead, his body lost in the ashes of the North Tower, his car still parked at our local commuter train station.
The three of us went home and turned on the news again. My sister and I started our homework in front of the TV. The announcers were all saying the same things - we don't know much. The same clips played over and over: one tower burned, a plane came by and hit the other, a ball of flame billowed out the opposite side. Steel groaned. Towers collapsed.
Hours ticked by. Mom heard from Dad - he'd had to take a ferry back to NJ because of the chaos, and was miles away from his car. She left to find him.
Katie left the room, and I turned the TV to Nickelodeon. Katie came back and told me we had to keep watching the news. "This is history. This is important," she insisted. She was 12.
Dad made it home sometime around 6:45, and our local church had scheduled an emergency mass for 7. "Come on, let's go to mass," he said. I was surprised. Mom came with us to church - another surprise, because she's Methodist and we're Catholic. But there was no splitting up that day.
At church I saw a classmate - the school clown - and it was the first time he didn't have a smirk on his face. He smiled at me reassuringly as he went past me in the communion line. More surprises.
After church we had dinner, finished our homework, even went outside to play a little bit in the late-summer dusk. "I wonder if in California, this is nothing," Katie said. "Maybe they're not even scared."
Later on, Dad said, "When you guys feel up to it, I want you to write down everything you felt today. It'll be important for future historians."
September 11 was a terrible, surreal day. September 12 was even weirder. The adults were all acting strange, and us kids didn't know how to handle it. My teacher told us, "Look up at recess. This is the only time in your life you'll see a sky without airplanes." Some of the boys had already heard "this is bin Laden's fault" - who? - and were ready to get even - how? Our writing teacher assigned us to write about how we felt the day before. Why is everyone so obsessed with documenting this? I wondered. Our religion teacher ordered us to write down prayers on cards that we could pin to the walls of the lobby.
I remember looking up at a whole wall full of my entire school's prayers. Some were well-wishes for specific people, loved ones who hadn't been heard from yet. Others were prayers for the army, or for the police, or for the souls of the dead. Mine said, "May God forgive the hijackers for doing what some coward told them to do."
I don't remember exactly how I came up with that.
After the initial shock wore off, I became interested in how to stop terrorism. I cried the day the US started bombing Afghanistan. My father had to tell me, "We're targeting the kinds of power plants that only take 1 or 2 people to run. Not a lot of people are getting hurt." I argued with my social studies teacher, saying we shouldn't go to war in Iraq. My parents took me to my first protest at age 13. I told the admissions officer at a local private high school that I wanted to learn Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic so I could read all the original holy texts and help people get along better. I grew up and became an EMT - which meant, if nothing else, that I could be more proactive when the Boston Marathon got bombed. I studied Arabic. I lived abroad. I tried to convince my foreign friends that the USA isn't the bully it sometimes appears to be. I tried to convince my American friends that Muslims are just people, and terrorists aren't faithful Muslims at all. I volunteered for The List Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies. I became an ESOL teacher to help refugees.
I kept praying for God to forgive the bad guys, and teach them how to be good.
That's not to say that I've never been angry, or vindictive. I know what it feels like to want revenge. The night that President Obama announced Osama bin Laden's death, my roommate and I went to Boston Common with some of our dorm mates. People were dancing and waving flags and shouting, "U-S-A! U-S-A!" It took me an hour to realize, this is wrong. We shouldn't celebrate someone's death. Ashamed, I told my friends the cigar smoke was making me sick, and got a cab back to campus.
In the end, the lesson I learned from 9/11 is that hate and fear can be destructive. I've spent the years since hoping that love can counter both. As the years go by, I've seen that most of my fellow Americans didn't learn that same lesson. I saw it when we started two major, unwinnable wars. I saw it when we stigmatized Muslims, when our law enforcement infiltrated mosques and alienated whole populations. I saw it in the federal government's reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing, and in their decisions to carry out civilian drone strikes worldwide. I saw it in our decision to elect a bigot to our highest office.
Tomorrow is Monday, September 11, 2017. It has been 16 years. I still pray constantly for God's love and God's guidance to enter our leaders' hearts, as well as the hearts of all terrorists (foreign and domestic.) I don't know how to change the tide. But tomorrow, I'll get on the subway and go to work in the Financial District of NYC. And no one will make me afraid.
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