2001

When I was eight years old, my family made the move from Colorado to Missouri so that my father could attend medical school. At first, the move was an adventure: a new state, a new town, a new school, new friends. But the adventure quickly vanished under the weight of loneliness and fear. It was 2001 and a little over a month after we moved to Missouri, the twin towers collapsed.

I think everyone probably remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Sort of like how everyone remembers what they were doing when Kennedy was killed. Tragedy sears itself into our memory, a brand that will never truly heal though it may fade with time.

I was in Mrs. Martin’s third grade classroom. It was early, before the tardy bell had rung, before morning announcements had been given, before we’d said the pledge of allegiance. The TV was on in the classroom, which was unusual, and Mrs. Martin was crying and the classroom fell to chaos.

We were in third grade and our teacher wasn’t paying attention. We were all talking loudly, standing in our chairs, doing the things children do when they think they can get away with it.

I don’t remember how Mrs. Martin got us to quiet down, I only remember that she somehow did. And then she explained to us that something terrible had happened in New York City. I didn’t fully understand the implications of what had happened, didn’t understand that everyone on board those planes had died, that people in the buildings had been killed. I didn’t understand that children had lost parents, that husbands had lost wives, that parents had lost children. I’d come to understand it later, when the school organized a stuffed animal drive to send toys to children who had lost a parent in the attack, but on September 11th itself I couldn’t fathom any of that.

My mother pulled me out of school that day, then picked my brother up from preschool. I didn’t understand why, but I knew she was afraid and that she wanted to be with her children. We didn’t have TV, so we spent the rest of the day watching the news on our neighbor’s flat screen. We watched the towers fall over and over again and I was scared because my mother was scared, so I knew I should be to.

September of 2001, I took my first steps away from childhood. I felt true fear for the first time in my life, felt true sorrow on behalf of strangers, learned that there is evil and hatred in the world. Those lessons were made harder by my loneliness and by my  homesickness for Colorado, for mountains and for proper snow. I have never cried so often as I did during that year. I have rarely been so unhappy and confused as I was during those months following the attacks.

Thirteen years have passed and all the feelings I felt that day are as vivid as they’ve ever been. I don’t think I’ll ever lose those memories, that sadness, that fear, that utter confusion and shock. I still don’t fully understand what happened that day, or why and I think that’s okay, because there is no understanding tragedy.

Thank you for reading. If you’d like, feel free to share your memories of 9/11 in the comment section.