"Where were you when the world stop turning on that September Day?"
I'm sitting here on my couch watching all the shows about September 11th on the History Channel and felt I needed to blog about this. Maybe it is because I never wrote down what I saw on that day or I just want it on here so when I make this into a book and my future family sees it they will know my take on it.
On September 11, 2001 I got up at 6am Arizona time to get ready to go to A hour. It seemed like a normal boring Tuesday and I honestly was excited just to get to school to see my new boyfriend of a couple weeks. Right before I left Betsy a daycare mom came in and said "You have to turn on the tv! It's all over the radio that some pilot misjudged or got lost and ran into on of the World Trade Center buildings!"
My mom turn on the Today show and there was a side by side screen of the towers on one side and Katie Couric on the other. She was reporting on what was going on and was just as confused as the rest of us. My mom and I watched in silence when out of the side of the shot we saw another plane. I knew what it was when I first saw it but I honestly didn't want to believe it. My mom and I watched as the second plane hit the second tower. My knees buckled a little but I made the excuse that we needed to go so I wouldn't be late for school.
School that day was honestly like nothing I had ever experienced before. The tv in every single room was on and instead of learning the various subjects of the classes we all sat there completely still and quiet with our eyes glued to the tv, with an sniffle here and there. My A hour was full, not one kid was absent, by the end of the day in my 6th hour only 11 or 12 kids were there out of almost 30.
That day I watch not only the second plane hit but both towers fall, World Trade Center 7 collapse, the dusk clouds cover the streets of New York, cover on the Pentagon, and cover of the field that flight 93 crashed in.
That night when everyone was asleep was the first time that I cried. To me this was the lost innocent. I know that sounds goofy but this was the thing that made me finally realize how evil people really could be, I was now old enough to understand and feel the pain of it, even thousands of miles away.
The next few days at school we did nothing but watch the tv. Some teachers handed out studies guides that we could do if we wanted to be in the end we never were asked or told to turn those study guides in. For the whole month of September the first song we would sing after warm ups in choir was a patriotic one and then we would have to wait a little bit for most of us to collect ourselves enough to continue singing.
As the years go on I forget what I was doing the day before or the day after but every single detail of that day has never faded in the last 9 years.
In 2008 I was lucky enough to go on a trip with my Aunt Cary to New York. We stayed at the Millennium Hilton that is on Church street right across the street where the towers once stood. We eerily stayed in room 911 on the 9th floor that over looked Ground Zero and the workers that work there 24 hours a day.
The first day we were there after my aunt had gotten up and went to her work meetings I got up and ready and went across the street to the old Gothic church that is there. I walked around and in it and marvelled at it's beauty. Before I left to go on my other adventures of the day I came to a bench outside of the church. On the bench were half circles and full circles indention on the seat. I knew they were the grooves of the O2 tanks that the firemen wore that made these indention when there sat there. I ran my fingers over them and silently shed a few tears and the left.
This is my story, as small and simple as it is, it is still a huge moment that happened in my lifetime that I will never forget.
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