Where Were You? Snapshots Of History

Outside the sky was a brilliant blue with not even a wisp of a cloud on the horizon. Inside the home schoolroom, however, storms were brewing. Only one week into the new school year and the excitement of unopened books and new school supplies seemed a distant memory, a cruel joke. Brother and sister bickered instead of working through assignments. Their teacher was perhaps the chief offender and greatest of sinners, lacking patience to resolve conflict, and forgetting to pray for wisdom in the gathering storm. She resorted to the act of desperation most mothers reach for eventually, sending older sister to her room, hoping she could salvage something of the morning so that younger brother might learn something.

After a few short moments, sister returned from her bedroom. Before mother could reprimand her, sister said something was going on; the announcer on the country radio station had said everyone should turn on the TV.

This was how my morning began on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. My first thought upon hearing my daughter’s words was that someone had shot the president. As with most in my generation, I have distinct memories of watching news footage of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, though I was only two years old at the time. Sitting on the floor with my mother and sister in our first floor apartment, watching the black-and-white television set with rabbit ears is, perhaps, my earliest childhood memory. I remember that my mother had made chicken salad sandwiches and ate them while watching the news on TV.

I knew that my children were witnessing a similar defining moment in their lives, one which would make an indelible mark in their memories and shape the direction of their lives from that point forward. We cried. We knelt by the coffee table and prayed. Then I told them to write about what they were witnessing. My son was eight years old at the time, and my daughter was not quite twelve. The following are their journal entries from that day, reflecting their original spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Son’s Entry: 9/11/01 Sunny

Planes crashed into the world trade center and the Pentagon, and it might be a war daddy is in Utah and the airports are closed. We were doing school and (sister) went to listen to her Radio, and then it happed. They said get your kids out of school and get them in front of t.v. so mommy went to go see what it was, and one plane crashed into the world trade center, then they said one crashed into Pentagon. Then the world trade center collapsed, then they said that another building collapsed.

Daughter’s Entry: 9/11/01 Sunny                                                                     Terrorism in America

Today the World Trade Center was hit by two airplanes. A scary deal. People hijacked the plane and flew it into one of the towers. Another followed in the next half hour. On my break I turned on my radio and they were telling people to take their kids out of school so I knew something was up. The tv was turn on and soon the first and second crash ended in the buildings collapsing. About 10,000 people died in the crash in New York. They are comparing it to Pearl Harbour. Much the same. We saw the second building collapse. White House was evacuated and so were all the important buildings. American and United Airlines were used as usage for bombs. The Pentagon was hit after the second tower was hit. There were a lot of people killed there and fire was pouring out everywhere.

Although I had asked my children to write about the day America was attacked, I hadn’t written about it until now. I want to remember that day, to remember how we had wept and prayed together, how we watched the horrible footage over and over, how we waited for news of rescue and survivors.

I’d forgotten how high the early estimates of casualties were, not that the numbers weren’t horrific enough. As my children had written, my husband was out west traveling on business. At first I wanted him home immediately, but all air traffic had been grounded. I called a friend whose husband was stationed at the nearby submarine base to see if, as a military wife, she had any more news than was circulating on the networks. She said only that her husband had called to say he’d be late; they needed to button up the submarines. Once it occurred to me that my home was within striking distance of nuclear submarines, I no longer wanted my husband to come home. I figured he was safer from terrorists in the deserts and mountains of the west than we were on the east coast, near a military asset. I had a full tank of gas and thought maybe I should just load up the kids and drive to him.

People volunteered for blood drives. Flags flew. Strangers were kind to one another in the days following the attacks, when clouds of smoke continued to swirl in the streets of New York City. While walking through the parking lot of a shopping center, I saw an elderly woman back her car into that of another. I saw that she was visibly upset and, after making sure she wasn’t injured, tried to reassure her. “Everyone’s a little shaken these days,” I said.

I learned that a young woman from my hometown had been killed in the collapse of one of the towers. When I was a young girl with a paper route, her family was among my customers. A gangly, awkward, pre-teen, I always looked forward to days when she answered the door, offering her friendly smile and a few kind words. She was tall and beautiful, and a member of the girls’ basketball team and made this shy, awkward girl feel so special when she came to the door to take the newspaper from me.  She was just one of so many beautiful people killed on that day.

Airplanes started flying again and when we heard one overhead, my children and I looked up as if seeing something for the very first time. My husband returned home, and a few short days later our family flew together out west. We had to get up much earlier than usual to undergo new searches and security procedures. We saw dogs and soldiers and automatic weapons in an American airport. The flight attendants on our plane were visibly nervous, though trying hard not to appear so. I asked one how she was doing. She tried to assure me that she was okay, but then pointed to a large, muscular passenger seated next to me and said, “But if anyone gives me any trouble, I’m coming for him.”

When we arrived at our destination at a national park, a huge American flag flew at the entrance against red rock and bright, blue sky, that same brilliant blue that had colored the sky before all the trouble began. A sign in front of a hotel read, “Thanks for traveling. God bless America.”

These are the things I needed to write down, to remember so I can tell them to generations to come. Things I want never, ever to forget. Won’t you join me in writing down your memories of that day?