9.11.01
I was 15. Too young to understand the gravity of what it all meant but old enough to feel something in the air around me that was too thick and sharp to breathe in freely.
I was at school, I needed to get up and move around. I was anxious that morning, couldn’t stop shifting in my seat. So I left my class and walked down the hall to splash some water on my face and hopefully reset.
Like a scene from a movie, out of my peripherals from the middle of the wide hallway, I saw all our small classroom televisions come on in unison. It was some kind of news coverage so my teenage response was to dismiss and continue walking.
As I slowed to a creep, an eerie wave of dread crawled up my legs and swept me with a sick sensation that made my hair stand on end.
I noticed that I had stopped just adjacent to an open classroom door with a TV in view.
Shuffling through the muttering voice to grab hold of any words that could clear my fog, my sickness grew to outright horror. Hot tears gathered, blurring my vision, as I stood alone in the hallway, tranquilized.
My legs felt like lead as my heart and mind raced in a circle as though it were going to come out of its rhythm and spin straight out of my chest.
Everyone else was completely frozen. Their faces hollowed, mouths agape, eyes wide, in complete silence.
Oh god the silence.
The absolute screaming silence. I will never forget it.
I was the only person in the building out of place and I didn’t know why, but I felt as though I couldn’t go back.
I couldn’t go back to the moment just before the hallway was flooded with flashing white light.
As pieces of the echoing words absorbed, my mind labored them together.
In the same moment, an increasingly ominous air swept in like a wall of smoke. It was palpable and felt as though someone was centering me in their crosshairs.
All at once, I turned around to return to my class. As I breached the doorway, all eyes moved from the TV to me.
No one spoke, and as I looked from face to face, I saw red swollen eyes, furrowed brows and faces pinched in pain and confusion.
The youthful, lighthearted glow from all of their eyes had been snuffed out. No one was the same.
Like someone being assisted with a casted leg, we all held and leaned on one another.
We moved in unison, smoothly and graciously for the rest of that day as the day was brought to an early closure. At the time we’re didn’t know if we were to expect additional terrorist actions so our schools thought best to dismiss in the event of more widespread attack.
For the remaining hours, we set aside all other matters but this. We gathered, consoled, aired our questions, guided each other to understanding. We were raw, severed open, and scared. Yet, secure in our presence with one another.
In a way, while we stand a more “advanced” nation in many ways, I grieve the America that was. Hours after the most tragic incident of our modern times, we were stronger than we are today. We were United, a force whose presence was revered without utterances.
Now, our country as a whole, stands in more unrecognizable ruins than our towers on the evening of September 11th 2001.
It breaks me to consider that I may have to figure out how to accept the direction the world is headed. That I might have to reconcile my childhood that has passed and mourn that my children will evolve without the very essence of what it means to be a child unencumbered with the weight of their lost and selfish parents squabbling over their self-righteousness and the duty of being their political pawn.
I’m sitting here on a plane on the 20 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 wondering if any soul on board this plane recognizes anything about today other than it being a Saturday.
I’m disheartened that our country has fallen so far away that it is a genuine concern whether there is anyone left that holds their country in their heart as they hold their social media accounts in their hands.
As for me, I woke up early, stepped outside to my flag, and made sure she was straight and upright before the first ray of sun found her.
I watched a neighbor two houses down do the same.
I can only speak for my home, but we are still patriots. My sons will value their American rights and liberties, honor their faith-based virtues and respect their fellow countrymen as an above-all-else principle to live by.
We stand on American soil, not only by right but by grace. I pray we, as a nation, navigate to a place where this is once again, our compass, as it was for the founders of this country that knew gravely, the invaluable treasure she is.
Long live America the beautiful.
#neverforget
