I couldn’t tell you what I had for dinner last night, but I remember September 11, 2001.
It was an absolutely glorious early autumn day. Bright blue sky, no clouds, lovely temperature. In the fall semester, I taught first-year English at a small college in central Pennsylvania, a class called College Writing Seminar (CWS). The radio is on in our house all day long, and I have always streamed public radio at work. I was prepping for class, and just minutes before class began, there was a news flash about an accident — a plane crash — at the World Trade Center in New York. Shocking, mystifying, but I had to get to class. So I went. Our boys, both in elementary school, were already in classrooms of their own.
As our small college group of 15 or 16 people sat around learning and writing, more unimaginable things happened in rapid succession that morning. One plane crashed just 75 miles from where we lived, in the rural southwestern town of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. My friend and neighbor asked out loud, “Is this the end of the world?” Not quite, but it was the end of the world as we knew it.
My husband was dean of students at the time, and there was a student experiencing a medical emergency. The young man needed a life flight to medical care, but airspace all across North America was closed — totally closed. I can’t recall exactly, but the student had to be taken by ambulance to the nearest medical center in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. Sports teams didn’t (couldn’t) travel. There were solemn gatherings and memorials. It was deeply unsettling and very confusing, an upset to the systems of society and politics (private and public).
When my CWS class met again two days later, we put our chairs in a circle and talked. First-year college students are so young, many of them away from home for the first time. I said that I thought everything had fundamentally changed — in one day. Those students went on, studied at college, graduated, got jobs, married, had families. I just emailed one of them a few weeks ago — Andy. He has had a very successful career in logistics (is that what it was called in 2001?), is married, has three boys and was just delivered of a baby girl in January. It has been a generation since he was in class with me. It is unbelievable.
So much has changed since that day: travel, documents and documentation. Fear and suspicion of others continue, alas, demonizing the innocent and the blameless.
I have visited the memorial at Shanksville and spent time in New York City. Our family friend, Chris, was killed in New York on September 11th and, as far as I know, his remains were never recovered. When our boys were just a year younger than they were on September 11th, we went on a field trip to New York, saw the holiday Rockettes performance at Radio City Music Hall, and then went to the top of the World Trade Center. The Statue of Liberty could be seen in the harbor down below.
As I think back to that day, I am in awe. Awe at the dreadful and needless loss of life. In awe of those who enlisted or went immediately into military service and spent time in harrowing places. In awe of the people and systems and structures that developed to keep us and, I think, the world safer. In awe that America continues to be a place of aspiration and hope and ideals that much of the world seeks to emulate.
Take a pause this day, consider the toll that September 11th took, remember those who were lost, and seek, in your own way, to make the world a better, safer, mindful, and considerate nation. These words from Maya Angelou can, I feel confident, guide our way: “My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. Continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart” (from her poem “Continue”).