September 11 Memories

On September 11, 2001, I was in my second year of teaching high school English and a new bride of not yet two months. I turned on my radio to hear scattered news reports five minutes before I pulled into the school parking lot. There were so many rumors swirling; I knew something terrible had happened, but of what I was not yet sure. The bell rang, the students came in with wide frightened eyes, and the rumors began. The Capitol had been attacked, the White House, the Pentagon, Chicago, the planes were flying westward, they were coming to us, we were next. I had no way of finding out about what truly was happeneing, and tried to keep some semblance of reason and order amid the fear and chaos, continually telling the students that "school is the safest place for them to be" which is true generally, but a school also seemed like a wonderful terrorist target, and planes from the Ontario Airport often flew over our heads. By third period, the administration finally got their wits together to give us a little more information in the form of a handout. At lunch, I went by the career center, where I saw a grainy TV set with images of a burning building for about two minutes. At last I went home. Ryan was there. I sat and watched the planes hit the buildings. All those hours of telling my students they shouldn't worry, it couldn't be that bad, concentrate on what you're doing, were over. We should worry. It was bad. Had I known more I would not have been able to concentrate. My husband and I held hands and cried together out of horror, loss, fear, and the infinite sadness that comes when innocence is harmed. Our new marriage had been born into a new world of uncertainty, yet we had the gospel, and we had each other. I think we will probably tell our children about that day, much like I remember my mother telling me about the death of President Kennedy, and my grandfather B. talking about Pearl Harbor. In my life it has been a defining moment that has put into perspective so many things: my family, my faith, my love of this great country, my debt to those who put their lives in peril so that I might live in peace. As a wife, as a mother, as a retired educator, as a lover of America, it is a day that I hope lives in our hearts and minds and is never forgotten.