Three days ago, I was up working by 8am as usual- at home because- it's 2020. I decided to work on my laptop in the living room instead of my home office. I'd never been at home during those "silent moments" and I wanted to take advantage and watch what I could on TV while I worked. At 8:46am, when the channel I was watching took a moment of silence. I also respected a moment of silence, as I bowed my head. Abby came out of her room and asked what was wrong.She knows of 9/11. I've spoken to her about it in great detail and watch a lot of documentaries. But it was at that moment, that I realized that she hasn't been home during those "silent moments" of 9/11 since we was too young to know.
I explained to her what happened 19 years ago. From my perspective. I was thirteen. In eighth grade Honors English. I remember when my teacher answered the classroom phone, her face dropped. She hung up the phone, turned the classroom tv on and sat down at her desk. We all stared at the TV in silence as we watched the twin towers burn.
Abby turned to the TV and saw the clip they were showing. I talked to her about the conversations that we had in our classroom." How it could have possibly been an accident, a private plane, a terrorist attack,engine failure. We wondered if it was over. What was gonna happen next. Are those people in all of those windows above them gonna be able to get out? Just then, the news anchor on the clip is disrupted with another plane hitting the twin towers. People were jumping out of windows hundreds of feet high. The cameras were still live as the camera-men started to run for their lives. As they ran, you could see other people running. People hiding under cars and trying to run into shops. Everyone was so covered in ash, and you could barely recognize that they were human. Every few seconds, you'd see someone running the opposite direction that everyone else was running. You couldn't tell if they were crazy people or what they were doing. We later realized those were police and firefighters running towards the collapsing buildings to save those people
At that point, our classroom phones started ringing. Parents were picking up their kids from school. None of our classes after that were about math, or art, or science. It was kids asking teachers if we should be scared. Is America under attack? At 13, all we had seen were movies. We didn't know if more cities were gonna be attacked. Was all of America under attack? What do we need to do? Where do we need to go? Are we all gonna die? I live in South Carolina. We weren't near the World Trade Center whatsoever. But we were children. We were scared. And we'd never seen any of this kind of attack on our county.
As I'm telling this to Abby, she asked, "Well, what did your teachers tell you?" Ya know, I think back now and those teachers were mostly younger than I am now. They were afraid themselves. They didn't have any answers and wanted to speak to their families and parents and ask them the same questions. But they spoke honestly. Every teacher said the same thing. "I don't know what's gonna happen next. But I wish I did"
I know almost everyone that reads this has their own story similar to this. I know some people think it's crazy that I tell my daughter some of the gruesome, horrible details of this day. But this day was the first day I've ever been able to tell her from MY point of view on the same timeline that things were unfolding. She's seen the news clips. I've talked to her, in detail, about this day many times. But because of the craziness of this year, I got to explain America's modern day turning point to my child minute by minute from my own experience. Although she knows the story well, she's never heard me explain it in my words, from my point of view, as we looked at the clock and saw really how long it seemed that everything was happening. And how sometimes even grown ups just don't have the answers.
It wasn't til it was all over that I realized the moment I had with my child. I remember asking my Great Aunt what it was like when Martin Luther King Jr marched and the world changed. I remember asking my Great Uncle about WW2 and how hard things got. I always felt so lucky that I got to hear something in my history books from someone that was there when it happened. And in this moment, I realized that I was also passing down infamous stories of history that they learn in school.
Even if it isn't the anniversary of 9/11, or Patriot's day. I recommend you write down the timeline of events and tell your child your memories of that day. Show them how long it seems like each minute took. Tell them what you were feeling during that time. You never know. In these crazy days were are living now, it may help to know that they aren't the only ones who have ever felt that way in a moment in time.
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