Reflections on 9/11
24 years ago today, I had just dropped off my older daughter at our synagogue’s pre-school and was driving my younger daughter to Gymboree. It was a glorious day. The sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the weather was warm. It was the hopeful, optimistic beginning of a new school year.
That all changed when I arrived at the class. My friend looked at me with concern and shared that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center.
“What?” I couldn’t comprehend what she was telling me. A plane hit the World Trade Center? Was it a small plane? Was it a private plane? How could a plane hit the World Trade Center? I was trying to understand what was going on. I had difficulty processing it.
However, with a 20-month-old child ready for Gymboree, we had to move forward. The teacher was unsure of what to do, but since the group was present and the children were already playing together, we held our class wondering what would happen next.
Forty-five minutes later, I was driving home and questioning what could have caused the crash. When I arrived at my house, I turned on the television and saw the smoke billowing from the Towers. Both buildings had been hit, and it became horrifyingly clear that this wasn’t a tragic accident, but a terror attack. I began worrying about all the people I knew who worked in or around the World Trade Center. Did they get out? Were they ok?
I became more shaken when I watched the Towers fall. I couldn’t fathom how those enormous buildings that took so long to build and were the symbol of America could fall. It was terrifying. I began to make some calls to see if the friends that I knew worked in the area were ok.
As news broke of the plane hitting the Pentagon and the plane crashing in Pennsylvania, we all realized it was a terror attack. As more news was reported, we learned of the heroic passengers on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. We began to fear more attacks throughout the country.
I began to worry about my daughter at the synagogue preschool. Would synagogues be targeted? I decided to go and get her. I simply felt that I needed my daughters with me. My husband was working in his office in Paterson. Although he didn’t see it, he heard of people in the city celebrating the attacks. I wanted him to come home too.
Our world changed that day. Almost 3,000 people died on 9/11 and many more suffered lifelong injuries, not to mention PTSD. Our safe place, our home had been attacked in a way it had never been attacked before. The world as we knew it changed forever.
Today is a day to remember the fallen, to give tribute to the many innocent people who lost their lives, and to stand up to hate in all of its evil forms.
