Where Were You?

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."  

Zora Neale Hurston

There are events in everyone's life that no matter how many years pass when someone brings up the subject you can tell them exactly where you were and what you were doing.  In my 56 years I have had a few.

I was in the fourth grade reading when the classroom door opened,  the principal walked in and told us to put our heads down on our desk.  She and the teacher began whispering and she left.  Mrs. Barnett then announced President Kennedy had been killed.   I remember looking up as she sat down and put her head in her hands.   My mother was one of the first parents to show up at school to take me home.

And, on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I left my home headed for school.  I had early morning room duty that day and had left home earlier than usual.  I was stopped at a traffic light waiting for the turn signal when a radio newscaster announced a plane had flown off course and crashed into one of the towers of The World Trade Center.  I remember thinking how odd and turned the volume up on the radio hoping to hear what they thought might have happened.  The light changed and I turned into the intersection.  I had not traveled far when it was announced with disbelief a second plane had just crashed into the other tower.  I remember saying out loud to no one, "this is not an accident".    I called my husband when I had a break.  I heard the anxiety in his voice when he said, "A third plane has hit the Pentagon.   We are under attack, have you talked to Heather?" Heather was in school watching the events unfold on a television in her classroom.  Last night she shared with me her memories of that morning .  As teachers, we carried on our day as best as possible trying to have a normal day.  I remember spending long periods of time on the playground watching children play and talking quietly with other teachers.  Parents arrived during the day to collect their children to take home.  A few of the schools closed early.  No one really knew what was happening or would happen.  Everyone just wanted to gather what was theirs and seek comforted at home.  We spent days listening and watching as this tragedy unfolded before our eyes.  It was the day we found out we were not invincible.  It changed each of us and our country forever.

We must never allow the horrific events of  September 11 melt into a paragraph somewhere in the middle of  a fourth grader's history book.  When we forget or minimize any crime against humanity we become complacent and risk the events to be repeated.