That Day

The years have come and gone. New buildings have taken the place of the old. People still fly across the country, albeit with more scans and body checks. Children have grown up. Life goes on. And yet……the memories of that horrible day, mixed with heroism, and the ultimate sacrifice of so many, remains. Although no longer as visible, there is a ragged scar, left on this country’s memory. It is a reminder of that fateful day, fifteen years ago. The day that so much changed….

A DIFFERENT WORLD

Image via Wikipedia

The day was normal. Just like any other. Elementary school children chattering with each other. My teaching assistant and I were working with our reading groups on that Tuesday morning. A sunny day, nothing out of the ordinary…and then a fellow teacher popped into my classroom to tell me to go and watch theTV in the school conference room. I excused myself, leaving my kiddos with my assistant for a minute.

I stared at the television, not comprehending what I was looking at. The plane, the World Trade Center, the fire and smoke. People everywhere. The second plane hitting the building. News anchors eerily silent as, even they, had no words for what they were seeing. Chills ran across me as I stared in disbelief.

I numbly walked back to my classroom. Knowing that life was different now.

I told my assistant to go to the conference room.

I looked at the faces of all my young students and realized that life as we knew it would never be the same. These children would grow up in a different world than I had.

And it made me so sad.

September 11, 2001 — We Remember

We Must Remember

Yesterday I watched a video filmed at George Washington University. These university students were asked what national anniversary was coming up this week. The majority of the students had no idea. Mind you, many of these young adults were in elementary school when terrorists took down the World Trade Center towers. Their ages were in the single digits when the heroes of the flight over Pennsylvania yelled, “Let’s Roll!”, before they took back the plane from the people that meant it for destruction. These students were learning how to read and compute basic math problems, when a plane turned the Pentagon into a blazing inferno.

It saddened me to see the students fumbling for words, scrambling for something to say. Completely unaware. They are now, like we all were before September 11, 2001. Blissfully ignorant. That Tuesday morning was a calm and beautiful, blue sky day. We naively went about our normal routine, never knowing that our world was about to change forever.

We live in a world where terrorism now makes the nightly news. Buildings blown up, embassies burned to the ground, people murdered, american journalists beheaded, Christians martyred because they refuse to convert, new threats of ISIS members crossing over our southern border, literally hell bent on our destruction.

If we don’t remember the terror we felt on that day thirteen years ago….we are doomed to repeat the scene. We cannot afford to be complacent. We need to remain vigilant. Our lives depend on it.

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A blog post from my archives.

I remember that day as if it just happened……..

 

 

 

A Different World

11 Sep

The day was normal. Just like any other. Elementary school children chattering with each other. My teaching assistant and I were working with our reading groups on that Tuesday morning. A sunny day, nothing out of the ordinary…and then a fellow teacher popped into my classroom to tell me to go and watch the TVin the school conference room. I excused myself, leaving my kiddos with my assistant for a minute.

I stared at the television, not comprehending what I was looking at. The plane, the World Trade Center, the fire and smoke. People everywhere. The second plane hitting the building. News anchors eerily silent as, even they, had no words for what they were seeing. Chills ran across me as I stared in disbelief.

I numbly walked back to my classroom. Knowing that life was different now.

I told my assistant to go to the conference room.

I looked at the faces of all my young students and realized that life as we knew it would never be the same. These children would grow up in a different world than I had.

And it made me so sad.

September 11, 2001

 

Memories Of The Moment

I was born in 1968, on a beautiful spring day, when many of our men and women were fighting in Vietnam. I grew up singing Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence in elementary music class, I watched Free To Be, You and Me with Marlo Thomas, and caught the Kroft Super Show on Saturday mornings, well before cable was the norm. As a teen, I listened to Michael Jackson’s, Thriller, and loved Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. I had excellent grades in high school. Life was good.

I didn’t know war. It was always some place else.

I graduated from college in 1990. I was teaching at my first “real” job. I had my own apartment, car, and was taking care of myself as an independent adult. Twenty-two seemed old and young all at the same time. The Gulf War started and I watched the news coverage. I had my students write letters to the soldiers. I became a pen pal to a young man who was my age. He was a native Iowan, named Pete. We talked of sand, and scud missiles, and the autumn beauty of Iowa. I told him about my classroom at school, how I loved teaching and the leaves changing on the east Tennessee mountains. I wanted him to remember what home felt like….even in the midst of the heat and feeling so alone.

I didn’t know war, except through Pete’s man-boy scrawl. The war was someplace else.

It was 2001. That Tuesday morning started like any other, early September day. It was sunny and calm. My classroom was active with the wiggles that come from corralling energetic elementary school children. Little did I know that the minutes were ticking down on normal. Things were about to change…and my memories of the moments that were about to occur would be forever etched in both my mind and heart. I remember running to the office where there was a TV in the school conference room. I saw the planes hit, I distinctly remember the sinking feeling in my gut. The memories of pacing the floor in disbelief and uttering, “Are we at war?”

With these attacks, this horrible tragedy…war came home…and it has changed me.

Changed us.

Forever.

O LORD my God, I called to you for help and you healed me.  Psalm 30:2

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Remembering those who were lost on this tragic day, twelve years ago. Remembering the police, coast guard, firefighters, and civilians that served that day, and some that paid the ultimate price. Remembering the servicemen and women who have fought and continue to fight for our freedom.

 

The Day The World Changed

Image by Bill Strong via Flickr

September 11, 2001. I remember.

A beautiful Tuesday morning

Normal.

I drove to work

where I taught elementary school

children.

My young son was with me.

Only an hour and and a half into the school day

everything changed. I remember.

A third grade teacher ran to the door of my room

and said, “Quick turn on your TV”

I instead walked to the office and there I saw the first

tower in flames.

I was watching when the second tower was hit.

My heart stopped. I remember.

The rest of the day, I was numb.

My students didn’t fully understand

We just kept going.

Trying to be normal

Through the tears.

At the time this happened I, myself, had been widowed for 10 months. I was already dealing with death in my own life when this horrible thing happened. I remember thinking in the school office, as I watched the tragedy unfold…this can’t be real. It can’t be happening. Is the world coming to an end? I tried to keep my emotions under control so I didn’t scare my students…but, they knew something was wrong. Terribly wrong. One of my 2nd grade students prayed in the classroom. And I didn’t stop her….because we all knew…. That God heard our pain that fateful day in early September.

Though I didn’t know the people who lost their lives, personally…I will not forget them. The people at work in the towers, the people on the flights, the police and firemen……and those they left behind.

I remember.

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• Remembering 9/11 in 2010 (nevillehobson.com)