I Remember

I'm jumping on the bandwagon and posting my thought on September 11, 2001.  Usually I stay away from what everyone else seems to be doing, but today marks ten years from a time that we all united together.  That unity was pretty amazing.


On September 11, 2001 I was 16 years old.  I was a junior attending a rural high school in Kansas.  


I remember sitting in my first class for the day, anatomy.  I can still remember where I sat.  One of my classmates was trying to get our teacher to let us go to the library to watch the news.  He said that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center.  We didn't believe him at first.  We thought that he was just trying to get us out of doing school work.  Shortly after, we found out that he was telling the truth.


I don't remember most of the rest of the school day except for my American history class.  We had a test that day.  After taking the test we were excused to the library where a projector had been set up so that more people could watch the news.


I remember the names of the missing running along the bottom of the screen.  The names of the passengers that were on those flights and whether or not they had been accounted for.


I remember that I recognized the feelings inside me, the immense sadness at the loss of so many lives and the fear that more was to come, as feelings I had felt before.  I felt these feelings on April 19, 1995 when I was nine years old and the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed. 


I remember going to work at the farm market that afternoon.  There was only one topic of conversation.  How could there be anything else to talk about?  I remember seeing the president's plane fly overhead.  I remember feeling awed that I knew who that plane belonged to as all other flights had been grounded.  I remember the owner's son coming in and saying that the price of gas was jumping up to over $7 per gallon because there was fear of an oil shortage.


I remember getting off of work and having to drive back out to the high school to pick up my sister who was working a concession stand that afternoon.  I remember running into the school almost panicky because I was in a hurry to buy gas before either the price went up or we ran out of gas entirely.


In the days that followed many rumors started out of the fear that this attack had left us all with.  I remember feeling scared, not secure, about the fact that we lived so close to Ft. Riley.  Fearful that this military base could be subject to an attack.  I remember rumors that the draft was going to be re initiated.


I remember hearing that the attack on the World Trade Center had originally been planned for the week in May 2001 that my mom, sister, aunt, uncle, and I were in New York City.  We visited those twin towers while we were there.  I remember the relief that I felt that I was not there.  Then I remember feeling bad and selfish about that relief because of the innocent people that lost their lives.  How was my life any more important than theirs?

Me and my sister on Liberty Island May 2001

I remember a few days later when we saw these beautiful red and green lights in the sky one night.  I immediately attributed it to another attack.  Turns out it was the Northern Lights.  Something extremely rare to be seen in the Midwest.  I didn't fully appreciate their beauty at the time because of the fear that sat within me.  I regret that.


I remember feeling that our country needed to retaliate against those that plotted and carried out this heinous attack.  For me to feel patriotic was an odd feeling.  Not a feeling I was used to.


Time has not yet distanced some of those feelings that I felt that day.  However, as time often does, I think that in 20 years I might feel a little distance.  I know that if another terrorist attack occurs on our country the feelings I have felt twice in the past will resurface like they were there just yesterday.


This is our generation's JFK or MLK moment.  The "where were you when this event happened" moment.  I hope that we don't liken it to just remembering where we were.  I hope we always remember to pause and remember the feelings that we felt that day.  To really remember and really feel what we felt that day.  

View of the World Trade Center from Ellis Island May 2001