This morning I woke up and had the same thought I have each year on this day. "I remember." I was twelve. The only thing normal about that day was my breakfast. I ate it and then rode the bus to school. The rest of the day was shock. There was nothing normal about the 8th grader saying we were at war, that an airplane had hit some building in New York. I remember not believing her. There was nothing normal about my two friends running at me, screaming, crying that they had just seen an airplane fly overhead. That's when I believed. There was nothing normal about the school doors being opened early for those of us waiting outside. There was nothing normal about sitting class after class watching the news. With each ring of the bell we moved mechanically from one classroom to our next, but the subject never changed. The World Trade Center, a building I had never heard of, a building I would never forget, was struck. There was nothing normal about the constant sobbing, sniffling, and hiccuping around me. There was nothing normal about people jumping out of flaming windows. There was nothing normal about the screams that filled my math classroom as the first tower fell. That was the only hour in the day when I did not have my best friend with me. And yet I never felt alone. I was surrounded by equally scared children, all of us wondering what would come next. And when it came, when the second tower fell, there was nothing normal about the quiet.
That was the worst moment. The moment of stunned silence in this room of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. We couldn't believe it. America was sacred. We were the strongest country in the world. No one could defeat us. And in that moment someone did.
There was nothing normal about our shock. There was nothing normal about the final bell ringing and no one rushing out the door, because we wanted to know what was coming. There was nothing normal about the fear I had for my pilot uncle. There was nothing normal about spending the evening watching the news, watching the same images repeating over and over and over. There was nothing normal about wishing my older sister would sleep next to me on my bed. There was nothing normal about the next few days, constantly watching the skies for signs of rogue airplanes, hoping to hear that just one more person had been pulled alive from the rubble. There was nothing normal about the fear.
I remember. I remember thinking my older brother would die in the trenches because of this moment. I remember wondering how long this war would go on. Would he be drafted as soon as he turned eighteen? Would they lower the age? Would he fight in the trenches? Be killed by bullet or gas? Or would he be killed before that, by some unknown entity flying an airplane into our city? If they would run a plane down in a random field in Pennsylvania, why not our little town in Utah? I remember hearing later that a list of prospective targets had been found. The White House, LAX, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Salt Lake City LDS temple. I never considered if that list was real or merely something spread around the rumor mill by terrified kids whose worlds were completely rocked. It didn't matter. We were not safe anymore. If someone could attack America, there was nowhere safe. That moment of stunned silence as we watched the second tower crumble was a pivotal moment for me, and for all of us.
It was not normal.
And yet, when I woke this morning, I realized, possibly for the first time, that today IS just a normal day for so many people. I woke up with this heaviness in my heart, this memorized feeling of sadness and fear -- though much mastered and subdued, I doubt that unease will ever truly dissipate. But my six-year-old daughter woke happy and excited because she gets to go swimming today. My four-year-old son rushed at my legs and squealed "it's gymnastics day!" My two-year-old is contentedly sitting at my feet with a car in one hand and a sippy cup in the other. They are free from my anxiety. And today will continue to be a normal day for them. As we currently live outside of the United States they won't see crowds of parents wearing red, white, and blue. They won't participate in a school-wide moment of silence. They won't know that today marks a day that changed so many lives. Because though the flaming buildings, the billowing dust, the falling bodies, the scorched ground, the gaping walls of the Pentagon, and the American flag flying above the Ground Zero rubble will always, ALWAYS be a part of me, so much of the world came away unchanged. To some it was a really bad thing that happened to some people far away. To others it was just another act of cruelty in the world. And to still others, it is simply something that they will read about in the history books some day.
Seventeen years ago I was scared that my brother would go to war. Today he is. He is deployed somewhere in the middle east, fighting the war on terrorism. But I am no longer scared for him. He is not a fourteen year old boy pressed into service. He chose this path. And instead of being scared I am proud. I am proud of the way my country rallied after being attacked. I am proud that America didn't allow themselves to be destroyed by this one act, that the silence inspired us instead of overwhelming us. I am proud of those scorch marks in a field in Pennsylvania, because they are the bravery that became America to that trembling twelve-year-old. Those were Americans. And I am proud to be an American.
