Watch. Remember.
If we can watch this and not remember how heartbreaking, frightening, upsetting that day was, then we have broken our promise. We’ve done what we swore we would never do. We have forgotten.
I’ll never forget. I was a high-school sophomore. I went to school that day with the biggest event on my agenda being the delivery of a note with three stickers and nothing else: YES.
Before Honors English, I delivered the note to its recipient, and knew this day would change the rest of my life. Little did I know just how much.
I sat in class, listening to the teacher, who would eventually call me a bitch to another class in which I would not be present, talk about something entirely uninteresting – perhaps Beowulf or something else I never understood or even cared to. The white-fro-haired teacher next door, who was once a contestant on an MTV game show, although I do not remember the exact one, stuck his head inside and said, “turn on the news. The World Trade Center towers have been hit by an airplane.”
I didn’t know what the World Trade Center was. I didn’t know where they were located. And it didn’t really matter – we didn’t believe him. It was a boy-who-cried-wolf kind of situation; the teacher was a jokester. Eventually, he returned and expressionlessly restated his previous request, to which we adhered.
Sure enough. It was still early enough for teachers to still have hot coffee in their apple-printed mugs, and we stared at the television in disbelief. No one spoke. We just watched. Watched. Watched. And then we watched the second plane crash quickly into the second tower.
I remember it being difficult to hold back my emotions, to not let the tears fall down my face. I wasn’t sure if crying was the okay thing to do – I didn’t want to be the laughingstock. But no one was watching me. No one cared. And I’m probably correct in assuming everyone else felt the exact same way.
That day, school stayed in session, but no work was done. No lessons taught. At least none that had been prepared by the teachers. We spent the entire day taking in history, witnessing a tragedy of American lives, watching terrorism unfold before our very eyes.
There wasn’t much to see. The news replayed the planes crashing, the burning buildings, the falling structures, over and over. And every time it was unbelievable. Every time, I felt so sad.
At home that night, I sat with my family and watched as New Yorkers displayed photos of family members on the streets, on billboards, on clothing, or holding the portraits directly up to the camera. It was heartbreaking.
September 11, 2001 was a day I said yes. And it was a day I said No. No, I will never forget.
And I will never forget.
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