Remembering . . .

Not to be cheesy, but since I was just listening to people on the radio share their "Where were you?" stories from September 11, 2001, I thought that I should record mine. Even though I'm sure my own experience is not significant to anyone but me, I think that it is an event that we will always reflect on and think about throughout our lifetimes and someday I probably won't recall the details that I still remember now, seven years later.

At the time, we were living in Joey's parents' house, and his sister Kristi and her husband Mike were living there with us (his parents had already moved to New Mexico). I was in my first year of teaching at Barcelona Middle School and Hannah was in kindergarten. I remember that I was blow drying my hair in the bathroom and Joey walked in and told me to come look at the TV. We sat in our bedroom for awhile and watched the events unfolding, still really uncertain of what was going on.

I would take Hannah to my parents' house on my way to work so that she could ride the bus to school with Andrew, and as I dropped her off I got really emotional. I was terrified of planes flying into buildings across the country, imagining that it would keep happening all day long. Since my parents both worked downtown I was afraid for them, and I was also scared of letting Hannah go to school and being away from her. I remember that we said a prayer with my mom before I left for work.

Being in an 8th grade classroom that day was an interesting experience. As teachers, we just felt speechless and shellshocked. We would listen to the radio and check the internet periodically throughout the day, trying to find out more but without having access to a TV I felt a little bit in the dark. I spent a lot of time just talking to my students, trying to explain the facts that I knew and trying to disspell the junior high rumors that had already started spreading. It was similar to the day I spent as an intern in another classroom on the day of the Columbine shootings. I felt a great responsibility to my students on those days.

I of course remember the terror and the disbelief and the sadness, and just being glued to the TV, trying to understand why this would happen. I remember being grateful that we had just returned from a trip to Kentucky for my grandma's 80th birthday celebration, and that if the party would have taken place on her actual birthday (September 18th) then we wouldn't have been able to fly there. And I couldn't forget the amazing stories of patriotism and love and kindness that came out of September 11th.

It just so happened that we were trying to conceive at that time. It must have happened within days after, because about a month later I found out that I was pregnant with Noah. There was a little baby boom at that time, and when I was delivering him the stories were all over the news about how hospitals all over the place were overflowing with deliveries from what they called "September 11th babies". I've never considered that anything but a coincidence since we were already trying before September 11th, but I love the idea of all of these sweet spirits being sent to earth at that time to bring comfort and love and help people remember what really matters.

Visiting "Ground Zero" in 2005 was an interesting experience. It was hard to connect that big hole in the ground with what I had seen on TV. It was a solemn experience but I had a difficult time making an emotional connection when it looked completely different from what was on TV (and thank goodness, because if it looked the same it would have been overwhelming). I felt that it was necessary to go there, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time there. It was a sad, empty place.

On a happy note, I love America! I feel so fortunate to live in this country.

The end.