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Hey guys! I got permission to post it here, so here's the article
A six year old girl woke up one Tuesday morning in early fall. She stretched, blinked her eyes, and rolled out of bed.
Co-op starts today!
For weeks, she had been waiting for this day -- the day when she would meet new friends and sing in a real live choir and do all sorts of cool crafts and -- oh, who knew what else! She traipsed into her parents’ room in that groggy-yet-happy way that children that age do on the morning of some much-anticipated event.
Turning into her parents’ room and peering around the bed, the tiny sprite stopped, bewildered and suddenly terrified; her mother sat cross-legged in the floor, the phone lying forgotten by her limp hand. Panicked thoughts shot through the girl’s young mind like bolts of lightning, hot and horrifying.
Oh no! Who was it this time? Not Papa Carl!
Mimi’s daughter had died only a week ago and while the girl hadn’t known her well enough to be very sad, finding her mother in the exact same state as that morning so fresh in her mind was terrifying.
Wait. Why is the TV out?
The TV was never out unless someone was sick or there was an election or --
Then, in a moment, like an electric shock, it hit. It wasn’t Papa Carl or Grammy or Daddy. On the grainy television screen, between the intermittent lines of interference that the failing v-hold allowed through, an airplane flew straight into a skyscraper.
That little girl was me. That airplane was American Airlines Flight 11. And that skyscraper was the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
While most of you reading this probably recall exactly where you were on that particular Tuesday morning, most of my friends my age actually don’t recall much about it at all. I, however, have a particularly extensive long-term memory, and I remember the events of that fateful morning as though it were yesterday.
In September of 2001, I was a young home schooled first grader living a moderately happy life. Until only a week ago, I had never known anyone who died. Even Kiera’s death (she was my mother’s much-younger stepsister who lived in Florida) was only vaguely sad, as I didn’t really know her very well and I was only six. The concept of death was so foreign to me; the only thing on my mind that morning was the prospect of meeting new friends that afternoon.
Some people say that a six year old -- and a sheltered one at that -- couldn’t possibly understand the magnitude of such an occurrence. They’ll tell you that a child’s world is centered around his or her home life and that things outside of that tiny corner of the world are beyond their comprehensive grasp. Maybe that is true for most kids; I don’t know. But I know what I remember. I remember the moment that I saw that airplane crash into the North Tower. I remember the shock of the giant fireball that followed the collision and engulfed the tower. I remember that disbelief of seeing the second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, careen into the South Tower only minutes later. I remember the horror of watching South Tower disappear in a cloud of smoke and debris, almost as though the earth itself had opened her mouth and simply swallowed it. Soon, we heard of two more planes; one that crashed into a big government building called the Pentagon, and one that burned in a field in Pennsylvania. I remember the grief, the terror, the confusion, the denial, the humanity of the newscaster’s painful, deliberate enunciation: “We are under attack.”
Over the following weeks, hours, days -- even months and years, people would try to explain what happened that morning, to rationalize it, to understand it -- to make it make sense. I would be told that mean men made it happen -- bad men who hated us because we weren’t something called “Muslims.” Some people said it was our fault, that we were taking away all their gas and soon there wouldn’t be any left, and that was why we had to wait in blocks-long lines at the gas station. Later, people started saying that American helped the bad men, placing bombs and starting fires. Still others began saying that the President himself had known all about it the whole time and had just let it happen. For every answered question, there were a hundred more waiting.
For weeks after the attacks, people were scared. The things I wanted weren’t at the grocery store. We started bottling up water in empty milk jugs and letting them sit in the back room for days before we were allowed to drink it. My parent’s said that it might be poisoned. We kids weren’t allowed to go get the mail any more; my dad said it might have something called anthrax. It was a white powder that could kill you, he said. We couldn’t go to malls or to the movies or anywhere else with lots of people; those could be targets. Fear reigned supreme.
I’m sixteen now and, looking back, the full picture of the attacks is clear. I know that nineteen members of al-Qaeda, a militant Sunni Islamic organization, hijacked four planes. I know that while three of those planes found their destination, the brave passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 retook control of the fated flight and crashed it into that field outside of Shanksville, PA. I know that the stock exchange closed down until September 17 and that the Dow Jones reopened with a record-shattering 684 point drop. I know that the attacks sent us careening into a full-blown war -- a war over which many would disagree and fight and be divided. I know all the facts and the numbers and the stories.
But staring at that old television screen, I didn’t know any of those things. No one did. What I knew in that moment as a six year old little girl was just the same as what everyone else knew -- that countless innocent lives had just been senselessly ended in a brutal, vile act of unjustifiable hatred. Nothing else mattered; not the names of the hijackers, not the reasons, not the ramifications, not the dollars, not even the numbers. All of that would come later. For one short instant, before all the questions hit, we -- a six year old girl in Missouri, a cab driver in New York City, a middle-aged man reading a storybook with a class of second graders in Florida -- were all the same. In our pain, we were United.
Unity: a sense that, despite our differences and disagreements, we are not alone; that, together, we can overcome anything. That’s what I wish had come of this tragedy. But it hasn’t. On a nearly monthly basis, there’s at least one story in the news about some dispute pertaining to Ground Zero or the surrounding area or policies. Now, I’m not naïve; I know the world in which we live. I know there will always be conflict. But the disputes over these issues go far beyond an acceptable level of disagreement and reach a point of pure hostility. I understand that this hostility stems from a place of fear and pain. But that does not justify our actions.
As the tenth anniversary of that dreadful day approaches, I challenge all of us, myself included, to refrain from being embittered by these events. Sad, horrified, confused, even angry, yes -- but not bitter. Bitterness heals no wounds. Bitterness builds no bridges. So as we remember this dark day, let us remember, let us grieve, let us question; but let us honor the memory of those we mourn. Just as they died together, regardless of race, creed, orientation, or beliefs, let us remember together.
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