In Memoriam - Sept 11, 2001

There's less than a half-hour remaining in the day and somehow I've been so busy I scarcely even remembered what today was. I was on my way to an appointment this morning when a mention on the news recalled the fact to me abruptly. Six years ago, over 2,000 people died horribly and needlessly, and today, life went on.

Somewhere else in the world, another tragedy like September 11th occurred, today, last year, 50 years ago, a century ago. They've touched all of us, and yet not at all. At this moment, tears are streaming down someone's face for a loved one lost in an attack or epidemic or war or genocide, and I'm worrying about my lesson plans for tomorrow. The juxtaposition is...somehow surreal.

Where were you the day the planes hit? I remember it as a day of an underlying, unnatural quiet. The day before, I had found out about the death of one of my piano teachers. I was still at home that morning, having slept late for one reason or another and was getting ready for class when my father phoned and told us to turn on the television. That was the first plane. I thought it had been an accident. It wasn't until I'd gone to school and settled in homeroom when I heard of the second plane, and the words that would eventually become part of the national lexicon: Terror. Taliban. Tragedy.

The entire day was full of a hushed anxiety, mingled with mundane concerns like whether school would let out early because of the attacks. (Strange, that events like disasters and terrorism and standoffs should grant students that happy boon, time off from school.) The televisions remained on, fuzzy-screened though they were, in most of the classrooms throughout the day. My math teacher left in a flurry of tears and worry, not knowing if her husband's meeting in the Pentagon had doomed him (it didn't). And then I was in French class when the news came of the plane that had been brought down in Pennsylvania.

The tension didn't ease with dismissal. I was at skating practice when a resounding bang! reverberated throughout the rink. Everyone froze. My heart did too, for a moment. There was a half-hearted effort to begin skating again, but it quickly faded. We strained for more sounds, whispering as we left the ice and began gathering our things. A rumor circulated that smoke had been seen rising from the nearby VA hospital. The eventual report that the noise had been a sonic boom from a jet taking off from the area's military base didn't sooth us. It had been a day like no other, why should we expect things to calm down?

And yet they have, for most of us. We will wake up on September 12, the memory of yesterday already blurry in the rush of today.