I had just turned eight when 9/11 happened. All I was told that two planes had hit two tall towers in New York City. I wasn't able to fully comprehend what that meant at the time and a lot of the commotion was mostly kept away from me. Though there was an anxious feeling in the air. The day after, the entirety of my elementary school stood around the flag pole with the flag at half mast to honor everyone who lost their lives the previous day. There was crying from many of the adults while others looked stunned that the country was dealing with understanding this horrific event. With my right hand over my heart, I felt an enormous feeling that life would be different from that day forward.
There was this girl on the playground who was crying on the small yellow slide later that afternoon. Her name began with a K and she was wearing a red shirt and her brown hair was in a pony tail. I went up and asked her what was wrong. She looked at me, her light blue eyes filled with liquid. She told me that her father was missing in New York.
That interaction was the most I really knew of what happened. Kids no longer having a mother or father. I can't remember how that impacted my thoughts then but looking back, I can't help but feel like that period of time during and after the attacks, life was changing all around me and I couldn't grasp anything for longer than a few minutes. My reality was still innocent, though I could see glimpses of the reality beyond my point of view was not.
Before 9/11, my father could come back with my mom, sister, and I at the airport to keep us distracted while my mom organized and got herself together to the flight to Maine. I remember watching planes go by with my father and getting excited about flying to see Grandma. The summer of 2002, he was no longer allowed to come back to the gate with us. There were new rules in place and those who weren't flying could no longer go past security. I could see my mom was a little more stressed than usual flying with us because she had to keep us calm and entertained while also navigating our way through security.
My mother's brother and sister in law used to live in New York and we would visit them and go to the city. We visited them and took the train in a month or two before everything went down. We went to the famous toy store FAO Schwarz and I got a small walking toy dog. I remember being so excited about having that toy dog and walking a bit around the city, looking up at all the tall buildings. When 9/11 happened, I thought back to my wonderful time in the city and probably thought of all the toys I encountered at the toy store. Though I do remember the tall buildings and wondering if any of the ones I was amazed by were hurt.
Regardless of what I knew happened, I understood that what took place on September 11th, 2001 was serious and changed everyone's lives. It caused everyone to acknowledge the fact that there's bad and bad people can do bad things. But there's more good than bad, no matter what bad does.
A few years after, my family visited my uncle and aunt in New York and went back to the city. After a day of walking around and doing various activities, we walked by ground zero. It was a huge hole in the ground with a barbed wire fence around it. There were missing people fliers on the fence and dirt flying out of the hole. The buildings around still had black ash on the exterior from what had happened. It was a moment I'll never forget. The pain was still in the air and walking by the place where everyone's lives were impacted in some way was a magnitude of incomprehensible emotions and feelings.
I learned more about what had actually happened on that day as the years went by. My freshman year of high school, I watched one of the many documentaries on tv and the footage shown was a lot to see. It's one thing to be told what happened and it's another thing to actually see and hear people who lose their lives on that day. Not only in New York but in Pennsylvania and Washington DC too. The weight I felt when everything happened came back when I watched that footage for the first time. I was back to my elementary school, standing around a flag pole with the flag at half mast, feeling the weight of the world changing in a single day, in one moment.
Last summer, I was fortunate enough to spend a few days in Washington DC. While I was there, the girl who I was with (who was 13 at the time) and I visited the Newseum. There was an exhibit of 9/11 and all the reporting that happened on 9/11 and the days following with the south tower's antenna on display. I was in a small room, watching the footage I had first encountered years before. While watching the terrifying and horrendous images flash across the screen, I realized I was the only in the room who was alive when 9/11 happened. It was this strange feeling of acknowledging that people younger than me who weren't old enough to know anything was happening or who weren't even born yet will learn about that day through history books and stories. They will never know what the world was like before 9/11. Life was different before that day and though I don't remember a lot, I'm thankful to have remembered enough.
This day, we remember those who lost their lives and the families and friends who lost someone they loved. The girl with the blue eyes and brown hair who was crying on the small yellow slide left a few days after everything that happened a Tuesday in late summer and never came back. I always think of her on this day and wonder if her father was ever found or if his image and name were on one of the missing person fliers I saw on the fence. Mostly, I hope that she's okay.
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