December 7, 1941. My Grandmother's 12th birthday. The day Pearl Harbor was bombed. At nearly 82 years old, she can still remember in painstaking detail where she was when they heard the news over the radio.
November 22, 1963. My mom had just turned seven. She can tell you exactly where she was when they heard President John F. Kennedy had been shot.
I'd always heard about events like this--major world events--that carried such an impact they were literally burned in people's memories, almost like a collective unconscious. People who were alive when they happened have vivid memories of exactly where they were when they heard the news. I never had my own experience of that...until 9/11.
September 11th, 2001. I was a junior in college; an RA in an all-girls building. I was still adjusted to waking up early from my summer job--much earlier than I needed to get up for class--my alarm was set to go off around 6:45 AM Pacific Time.
I hate alarm clocks that buzz, so mine was set to the radio. When it sounded, it played just long enough for me to hear, "...a plane has just hit the Pentagon..." before I reached the snooze button to turn it off. I thought, "Yeah, right," and stumbled out of my room and down the hall to take a shower.
As the stream of water woke me up, my mind went back to what I thought I'd heard--a plane hit the Pentagon? No way. I grappled with this nonsensical bit of information as I hurriedly finished my shower and raced back to my room. If something like that had really happened, SURELY it would be on the news. Little did I know what I was about to see.
I sat down on my bed, mouth open in horror, as I watched the first tower collapse in real time. I pulled my towel tighter around me and reached over to the phone to call my dad.
"Dad...are you seeing this?"
"Yeah, Jen, we've heard."
"This is bad. This is really, really bad, Dad."
"I know. We're on lockdown at our office."
As that bit of information--that even a tiny federal government office in a small, middle-of-nowhere town in Utah was locked down--began to sink in, I started to realize the magnitude of what was happening.
"Dad, are you watching it on TV? One of the World Trade Towers just collapsed. I can't even believe it."
"I know."
Without much else to say, we hung up. I sat in stunned silence, soaking in the horrific images on the screen, feeling helpless and desperate for more information. I knew my girls--2/3 of whom were freshman and were just beginning their second week away from home--would be waking up to this news soon. I pulled myself together as best I could, dressed and threw my hair into a ponytail...and then my phone started ringing.
"I'm freaking out. You know my dad's an American Airlines pilot? He's based out of Boston--he flies out of Logan Airport. We know he had a flight from Boston to California this morning--it might have been his plane. They're saying it was an American Airlines plane. He should have been flying there right about that same time on that same route."
"My parents are in New York. My dad was supposed to have a meeting at the top of the World Trade Center this morning. We can't get ahold of them, and we haven't heard from them. We don't know where they are. We don't know if they went to the meeting or not."
"I haven't heard from my roommate--I don't know if she's home from her shift at the Pentagon or not. She was working night shift. I can't get ahold of her. She should have been home by now. My office is closed--I was going to go home, but there are bomb threats all over--the whole city is practically shut down."
I told them all the same thing--Pray. Don't panic. And call me when you know more.
Then my girls started knocking on my door. One was a terrified freshman from Virginia--her dad worked at the Pentagon--and her entire extended family lived in lower Manhattan. She didn't know what to do; she couldn't get through to anyone.
Another was an international student from Nepal; I had spent the entire day before working with campus officials because she had received multiple hate messages on her phone over the weekend--before any of this had happened. As the situation unfolded, I worried students like her could receive scary and potentially dangerous backlash.
As story after story came in, I did the best I could to calm and comfort people. In reality, I was walking around in a stupor just like everyone else.
There was confusion on campus, too. First we were told classes were cancelled, then we were told they weren't. No one knew what to do. TVs were on everywhere, and there was an eerie silence across campus as people gathered around television sets quietly took in the devastation.
I was taking a class called, "Religion and Human Rights." It was a small, upper-level class, and so far we'd only met twice. We walked in, still totally stunned, and our professor stood, tore the syllabus up, turned to the TV and said, "I think our syllabus has just changed." To this day, that's the best class I've ever taken.
By mid-day, we knew something had to be done. We started making plans, and quickly a Vigil came together. That evening, everyone--thousands of people--gathered outside the student center. We passed out candles, we prayed, we sang, we listened to speakers, and we held each other and cried together. We talked about unity and love and respect for each other--and because my school is such a special place, we all knew it wasn't just talk.
After the vigil, I gathered all the girls from my floor and held a meeting. We talked about what had happened, shared stories of people we knew who'd been directly affected, and discussed how each of us were taking it. I talked to them about acceptance and tolerance and respect for differences. I told them we'd had an incident that was totally unacceptable before the events of the day, but absolutely intolerable now. My brave freshman from half a world away stood up and told the rest of the girls what had happened--and the other 44 girls on my floor hugged her and welcomed her and told her they didn't care where she was from, she was one of us. It was beautiful.
As the day drew to a close, I finally received news from all the people I was waiting to hear from:
"We finally heard from my dad. He flew over the World Trade Center ten minutes before the first plane hit. He's grounded in Kansas City now, and who knows how long until they can fly again, but he's okay. Thank God."
"My parents are okay. They're stuck in New York for who knows how long, but they didn't go to the meeting. They were running late, and right as my mom was about to turn the TV off to head out, it came on the news. They could see the smoke coming from the Tower out the window of their hotel, so they decided to stay where they were. They were trying to get ahold of us but the lines were jammed for hours. They're okay. Thank God."
"My roommate is okay. Her office was right where the plane hit. Someone asked her to swap shifts, so she worked the night shift last night and was almost home when the plane hit. She went back to the Pentagon to try to help and spent most of the day there, and a bunch of her co-workers are still missing*. DC has been in chaos all day, but we're both home now. Thank God."
I remember crying a lot that week, and for many weeks thereafter. I remember sitting in class thinking, "How am I supposed to care about math (or any other) class when the world is falling apart and I could be there helping?"--my mom honestly thought I was going to drop out of school and head to New York--and truthfully, I wanted nothing more than to do just that. I remember praying and praying and praying, and not wanting to miss a single second of news coverage. I remember images of people all over the world standing in solidarity with us in our collective pain and sorrow. I remember watching those firemen raise the flag over the rubble at Ground Zero, reading about Fr. Mychal Judge and his bravery, discovering with the rest of the country the heroics of ordinary Americans on Flight 93, hearing all the stories of miracles and heroism that came out of such devastation and tragedy, and marveling at God's ability to somehow bring glimpses of good out of such horror.
Now, ten years later, it is all still raw and painful. I still get teary watching the specials, reading the stories, hearing the news, seeing the coverage. I still think about the way my campus and people all across the world came together to mourn, to grieve, to hold each other tight, and to rise again--together. I still remember it like it was yesterday. And I hope I always will.
So, please leave a comment and tell me...where were you?
*Six of her co-workers never made it out. God bless them and everyone who died or lost someone in the events of 9/11 and those that followed.
