I had just turned twelve in 2001, just a few days before 9/11. I remember being in school already sitting in choir when people started talking about it, starting say that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. As a twelve year old, I didn't know what that was or where it was, but it sounded important. I remember thinking to myself what a weird thing to happen. So far it sounded like an accident from what people around school were saying, but it didn't seem like such a thing could happen on accident. Then we left choir and I headed to French class. We did not study French that day. The TV was on and immediately I saw what was going on. "ATTACK ON AMERICA" was the headline in enormous letters across the bottom of the screen. I was horrified. We watched the news all throughout class and witnessed the second plane hitting the second tower, we watched the anchors tell us about the plane that hit the Pentagon, and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania due to the bravery of its passengers.
Now of course only being in middle school, when my classmates and I saw "ATTACK ON AMERICA" we assumed it could be an attack everywhere. We were scared it would hit other parts of the country, and maybe even our region or city. My french teacher, who was a wonderful lady, Mme. Milstead, assured us that we not get hit. "Nashville would only be a target if the people who did this really hated country music." I gasped, and she laughed. Then I realized it was only a joke to make a point, that we were fine.
But the people in the planes, in the towers, on the streets of New York, in the Pentagon, the police officers and firefighters were not fine. I can't imagine what it was like being there dealing with the dust and debris and bodies that littered the streets, trying to save everyone possible.
My cousin, Stepha, in her blog Life of Fiction, wrote about 9/11 too. She mentioned that she feels like God was with those people that day. And that she doesn't know how, but it comforts her to think that. I watched a show the other day about two port authority employees who saved about 70 people as they descended the North Tower, but were killed when the tower collapsed. That shows me that God was with them that day. On ESPN they were talking about a young man who worked in the towers (but who wanted instead to become a firefighter) and how he saved 12 people before dying himself. They were able to find his body because he always carried a red bandana and the people he saved remembered his red bandana. His family knew what he did because of that bandana. God was with him that day.
As you can imagine watching those shows, I wept until I could barely see. Watching the towers fall is an image that I will never forget. Who knew I could still cry for complete strangers ten years later.
Shortly after the attacks on 9/11, a family friend who lives in New York sent us an email telling her story of 9/11. She worked near the WTC and was out on the street when one of the towers fell. She was thrust into a cloud of dust and debris, no way to see anything. But she guided herself along a building until she found a door and she burst through, coughing up debris and dust as she sucked in clean air. All I could think while reading her email was how frightening it must have been. After a few hours she made it to a friends to clean up and eventually made it back home to her boyfriend. Obviously, she was one of the lucky ones.
So on this the 10th anniversary of the attacks on 9/11 I remember and pray for those who died, those who survived, those who were lucky, those who weren't, and especially those who fought to save others- the first responders and the employees who helped their coworkers at the cost of their own life. I remember the passengers on Flight 93 who so bravely fought the hijackers and gave their lives for it, and for those who died in the Pentagon attack as well. May their memories be eternal and I pray that they are now with God where they will suffer no more.
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