10 years ago, I was just another teen, worrying about the banalities of high school.
On that fateful day, I remember waking up, turning on my radio, and listening to the horrible news. It was so surreal, I had to go downstairs to turn on the TV to make sure it wasn’t a prank. The local news reporters speculated that another plane may be headed for SF, the president was taken to a secure location, and we wondered what would happen next.
At school, we spent the day glued to the TV with one exception. My physics teacher put on a recorded performance of STOMP! to release us temporarily from the never-ending footage and grisly reports. It was an infamous day….I knew it had to be written down so I that will never forget.
Fast forward to the present, life turned out very differently than I imagined and the anxiety slowly melted away. It’s frighteningly easy to see how we’ve moved on with our lives. The hardest part isn’t remembering what happened on that day, but to learn from it and change things.
We need to BE the change instead of waiting for change to come because if we do nothing, nothing will change. And history will repeat itself.
What do you remember about September 11 and the events afterward?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Everytime I think back to that day I get shivers. I was at my first “real” job out of school and we heard it on the radio (which we weren’t supposed to be listening to) we snuck onto the computer to find out what was going on and I will never get the images out of my head. I remember calling my then BF (now husband) and they were all gathered around their computers at work too. My dad was out of the country and I called my mom who had no clue what was going on because her work was on strike so she was on the picket line when I told her the news. I also remember calling my cousin who was pregnant to make sure she was ok. All I could think about was those poor people and wondering if something would happen to us too.
I remember in the days that followed tearing up every time it was on the news or on the radio and feeling so proud of the outpouring of kindness that Candians were showing travellers that had to land in our airports. People opened up their homes and fed and cared for complete strangers.
I also remember sadness as racism ensued. Living in Toronto we are so culturally diverse it was so painful to see some turning on each other.
Everybody’s stories are so touching and we will all never forget where we were and what we were doing that day. It’s ingrained in our memories forever!
So sad
I was in a band class in high school when my teacher turned on the TV and we all just stood there shocked. Nobody could say anything..
Ten years ago I was in the 5th grade. I remember going to the bathroom to meet a whole bunch of girls crying. Then I heard the news through the grapevine and school let out early.
I remember getting back to my home in Coney Island and being very happy to see my family…especially my dad who was a Yellow Cab driver at the time. He was off from work that day. If he had been scheduled, the World Trade Center was where his cab would’ve waited for customers.
I remember watching the second tower fall from the balcony of my family’s apartment and trying not to think about the people who couldn’t make it out. I was only 10 years old. I’d never thought anything that that was possible.
I remember that day so clearly. I was about to be a freshman in college, but we didn’t start for a few more weeks. I had planned to go to the mall with a friend, but we called it off. There were rumors that Disneyland, about 15 minutes away from our house, might be a target, too, so everyone was hunkering down. My mom and I sat stunned on her bed watching the television…and we rarely watched tv at all in our house. We waited anxiously to hear from my uncle, who worked right across the river in Jersey but couldn’t be reached. I first visited NYC the summer of 2000 and had fallen in love with it, and finally got a chance to live there after college. That is one amazing city…they will never forget, but they can never be stopped.
I remember that day too! It was my first year at university, calculus teacher walks in and tells us that 2 planes just flew into the twin towers, and then she continued teaching. After class we spent the rest of the afternoon watching the tv. For the following months after, probably because I’m in civil, we had so many lectures explaining why the structure had collapsed, etc…
Still in disbelief that its been 10 years since…