I'm feeling particularly sentimental today. I'm looking out my front window right this moment and there's an American flag in my neighbor's yard waving in the breeze. It wasn't there yesterday, but today it has been put up as a beacon of remembrance for our country. Everywhere I look today I'm reminded of the date: September 11, 2011.
It's hard for me to believe that a full ten years has passed. To be honest, I didn't even realize on that day what September 11, 2001 would come to mean. In ten years, I still haven't documented where I was and what I felt, but it seems like it might be appropriate on a day like today. It may not be a story that everyone is interested in reading, but one day my kids, who will only ever know about 9-11 from their history books, may want to know what it was like for their parents. I suspect that most of us had similar experiences. This is how it was for me.
I was a junior in high school. It was a typical September morning for me. I was more concerned about how I was going to get my physics homework done that was due in Mr. Mac's class that afternoon than anything else. I was with Joe Iacco talking to him at his locker between classes when his best friend Kyle Williamson, who was known to skip out on first and second hours occasionally to sleep in, came up and asked us if we had heard about the twin towers. We had no idea what he was talking about. He told us that he had skipped first and second hours and was watching the news about how two planes had crashed into the towers. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but my first thoughts were, "Really? Could they not see the towers there? These people need to learn how to fly planes."
It wasn't until I learned that not only did planes crash into the twin towers, but also into the Pentagon that I knew that this was something more than just some idiot pilots who had lost their sense of direction in the sky. All of a sudden I remember panic starting to creep in. Soon everyone was talking about it, but no one really knew what was going on. Some parents were coming and taking their kids out of school. Mine didn't. People started talking about how the principal was going to close the school for the rest of the day. She didn't. Then there was talk about how Midland, Michigan was next on the hit list. It wasn't. I went to Joe's house for lunch and watched the footage on TV. His mom talked about awakening the sleeping giant. I was terrified.
When I went home for the day, my family and I just sat and watched the TV. It was on all day. All other programs were cancelled. The news kept showing the same footage over and over and over, but each time I saw it, it was like I had never seen it before. I still felt shocked every time that plane hit the tower. It was astounding to me that anyone would deliberately attack the United States. I had never heard of Osama Bin Laden. I had no idea what the Taliban was, much less Al Qaeda. All I knew was that someone was going to pay for this.
As I look back on that day, the thing that strikes me the most is how keenly I felt the pain and loss of people I had never met and a place I had never been. I took it so personally. It was as if the attack HAD been in my own backyard. The attacks had no direct consequence on me, a junior at Dow High School, other than the fact that now when I flew on an airplane I had to take my shoes off as I went through security. But in that moment I felt like the attack was on me and my family. I suspect that that's how it was for most people. That's why all of us remember exactly where we were when it happened. The attack was not on New York. The attack was on America. It was on me. I was New York. I was D.C. Everyone had a personal sense of loss for our brothers that we hadn't met, and thus, our entire nation came together and grieved. It was incredible.
More than anything, today I'm reminded of how precious our lives are. After we put the kids to bed tonight, Joseph and I sat and watched a beautiful tribute to 9/11. When Jake got out of bed in the middle, instead of sending him right back as we normally would, we let him snuggle on the sofa with us. As they showed pictures of the towers, Jake leaned in to me and said, "Mommy, I love you." Although it was a terrible moment in our history, I am grateful for the perspective that it gives me. I'm grateful for the opportunity to sit today and reflect. I hope to never forget.
