Here’s how it happened for me:
I was seven years old. Being a good little second grader, I
worked on whatever assignment that had been put in front of me. All around me
voices droned on as other little second graders talked with their friends. The
room was noisy, but not unpleasantly so.
Breaking through the clutter of chatter, a voice spoke
through the intercom. It asked for all the staff leaders (or something like
that) to meet. My teacher wasn’t included in that exclusive list, but there was
a sudden hush that fell on the class like a heavy fog. Intuition told us
something was the matter and all the squirmy second graders were getting
anxious.
My teacher excused herself, telling us she would be right
in the hall. With no supervision, the class drifted back to their normal
activities. Their short attention spans wouldn’t allow them to dwell on the developing
drama unfolding in another city. I think I went back to work, but I know there
was a whisper of worry and wonder in the back of my mind.
Our teacher came back distraught. All the little second
graders had to know what upset her. She told us a plane had crashed into one of
the Twin Towers in New York.
Our little brains couldn’t grasp the gravity of the
situation. It was a city away and we couldn’t see it, so we didn’t seem to
care. We were slightly fueled by our teacher’s distress, so we couldn’t go back
to class as normal, but we weren’t upset.
Later on, almost in a daze, our teacher told us a story
about how she had eating her Thanksgiving dinner in the South tower (I think
this was after it had gotten hit by the second plane). Her story got me to
thinking of how my dad would sometimes go on flights. Irrationally, because of
my underdeveloped brain, I started to worry that my dad could have been on one
of those planes. How horrible would that have been? (Such a naïve second grader’s
thoughts in light of the pain so many more were feeling because they had really
just lost a loved one.)
I remember one girl in my class had gotten upset because
her dad was actually traveling that day. I think everything turned out fine for
her.
When I got home, I heard my mom’s version and I found out
there were four planes: Two for the towers, one for the pentagon, and one for
the white house (that was luckily thwarted).
That day, eleven years ago, will live on in all of our
hearts. We will never be able to understand the twisted minds of those who
planned those horrific events, but we won’t forget those we have lost.
