Nine Eleven

It's hard to believe that it has been eight years since we watched those terrible images of fiery planes and crumbling buildings over and over. It's still a frequent question among conversing groups: "Where were you when you heard about 9/11?" And everyone always has an answer. We can't forget something that horrible. Can we?

I was teaching at the time at a small school in Hudsonville, Michigan. I was tired that morning because the night before I had been out late--an infrequent occurrence for me on a weeknight. I had been at the Allegan County Fair at a Michael W. Smith concert. It had been one of those balmy, beautiful late summer evenings. The weather and music combined made for a wonderful evening. Whoever would have dreamed what we would wake up to?

Since I was tired, I stopped at a drive-thru coffee place near school for a caffeine boost. As the woman at the window handed me my coffee, she asked,"Did you hear what happened?" What had happened had just happened, so all anyone could say at that point was that a plane (or two) had flown into the Twin Towers. When I got to school, I asked David, the principal, if he was aware of what was happening. Phone calls from parents and wives kept coming, and finally David called all of the students and teachers out onto the lawn to tell them what he little he knew and to pray--while we weren't sure what we were praying for, we knew where our Help had to come from right then.

Later, I drove home on 44th Street, usually a busy east/west road that runs past a mall, restaurants, office buildings, and, after several miles, the airport. The mall had been closed, as had all buildings that day that could accommodate large crowds. There was no one on the streets. There were no planes in the sky. It was like one of those eerily quiet times that occurs before a big storm strikes, except that something had already struck.

Our family had no personal knowledge of anyone killed in the 9/11 attacks. We shared the grief of the nation. My son, only seven at the time and in first grade, probably was impacted the most. His reaction was like one who passes an auto accident--horrified, fearful, and yet he couldn't seem to stop watching. We lived in a small tri-level house at the time, and his bedroom was on the upper level, next to mine. For weeks afterwards, he insisted on sleeping on the lower level, "in case a plane came." We eventually had to keep the newspapers away from him because he couldn't stop reading--and being terrified. It will probably be a memory he shares with his own children someday.

I've visited the site where the Twin Towers once stood, and I'm amazed at how ordinary it all looks. There really aren't any signs of the terrible scenes that we watched on TV of firefighters and other emergency personnel, black smoke everywhere, and people with fearful expressions running . . . somewhere. An old, colonial era church stands near the site--during the crisis a place of rest and triage for those who were injured and those who needed a break from their work. It's hard to believe that in a such a place of quaintness and quiet that something so terrible could have happened.

The big question is whether our children will remember this, the way some remember the assassination of JFK or the explosion of the Challenger. And, sadly, there are reports that some of the children who were Jonathan's age and younger already have forgotten the events of that day. But they need to remember--not in a morbid sort of way but in the way that memories serve us as a defense--that we can be attacked, that we can be vulnerable, that we do have enemies. A sad thing,that our children should have this memory. But sadder still if they would forget.