Saturday, September 11, 2010

Remembering

I know I haven't posted in quite a while, and I was going to post today about how everything is going since I got back to school, but I think that's best saved for another day in the not so distant future (I promise!).

Of course, today I am thinking about what everyone else over the age of 13 is thinking about. Well, mostly. It is also my roommate's birthday so I'm thinking about that too, but she's not here this weekend. So, I will use this post to talk about what every other blogger (again, over 13) is talking about. September 11, 2001.

Here's what I remember:

I was in 5th grade. It was Tuesday morning, I believe. That meant gym was my first class. I hated gym. We were in the girls' locker room getting dressed for gym when the gym teacher called in. She told us we had to put our school uniforms (Catholic school) back on and line up. We had to go to the church for some emergency assembly. Naturally, since I hated gym, I thought this was pretty sweet. Get out of gym free card!

Now this is the weird part. This is the part that I think makes this MY 9/11 story. Different from anyone elses:
Cut back to the previous day. I had always been quite the little dictionary, by that I mean I love complex words and I always have. That's why, on September 10, 2001, I explained to my best friend at the time what the work "hijack" means. Now, as we were lining up to leave gym (score) to go to the church that best friend of mine told me something that I will never forget. She said, "I kept having really weird dreams last night. I had this dream that people were hijacking planes and flying them in to buildings." Of course, at the moment is seemed rather inconsequential, but I still get chills when I think of that to this day.

We filed down to the gym, and this is where my memory gets fuzzy (I was only almost 11 years old.) I know they told us that there had been a tragedy and a lot of people had died, because what else would they say? We didn't watch footage in the church that day or in my class room because there were kids whose parents didn't want them to see it quite yet. I do remember when I saw it, it didn't seam real. I didn't see people in those images, just buildings. Tall buildings, some of the tallest in the world, flattening. Straight down in a poof of smoke. What did seem real to me, and what did really stir emotion in me was the footage of police officers and fire fighters helping injured people. Or the police officers who walked the streets around what was now ground zero yelling at civilians and telling them to leave the area.

The stories came flooding in of people who had died, of another plane that hit the pentagon on the same day, and of a third plane, headed for the white house, that was taken down by civilian heroes and crashed in a field. It was real, it was scary, it was something bigger than I had ever experienced and bigger than I have experienced to this day. We were at war. The first war the US had been fighting in my memory and knowing. The nation broke out in a fever of patriotism. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing an American flag or a "God Bless America" sticker. I remember thinking how beautiful that patriotism was and being sad that it would just be a phase.

Now its September 11, 2010. Most of the kids who I worked with in the daycares will never remember this , and I hope that they won't have another similar memory come in to their life anytime soon.

So there you have it. My 9/11 story. And I just want to let me readers (all 4 of you) know that for as long as I keep this blog, I will not be writing about 9/11 ever again. Not that I will forget the day, but going back and talking about it EVERY YEAR will get a little old. Besides, we should think about happy things on Mara's birthday! :)

1 comment:

  1. Every blogger posting today likely wasn't as young as you were when this happened. I've often wondered what went through the minds of young children that day. I remember Mom telling me not to watch CNN until she got home because she didn't want you watching it without her. You give a very unique perspective!

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