It's September now. The air is slowly cooling, leaves are turning, and syllabi are piling up on my desk. It's also the same month that holds an indescribable tragedy that no one wants to remember yet no one wants to forget it, either.
The eleventh day of September in 2001 was a Tuesday. It was a pretty nondescript Tuesday. I changed my outfit three times that morning until I got yelled at to get out the door. My brother and I bickered over who got to ride up front on the way to school. Ben won this battle, once again (I don't think I rode up front in our van until at least fifth grade) and I sulked in the backseat. We listened to the radio, and I heard something about a plane accident in New York. I thought it was sad, but it didn't seem like anything but a horrible accident.
Oh, how little I knew. How little we all knew.
I made my way through the school day, noting that Mrs. Schaffner, my third grade teacher, seemed upset. Maybe she was sad about something. It wasn't my business, and I had been taught not to pry.
Over the course of that day, everything was exactly the same. Even when a kid in my class stood up during prayer request time and asked to pray about the accident in New York. Mrs. Schaffner said that we shouldn't talk too much about it since we still didn't know what had happened.
In retrospect, all the teachers knew. My mother found out in the parking lot as she directed cars. This was the early 2000s, when only politicians and businessmen had cellphones, she had no way to call Dad to see if he was okay (Dad worked across town). Everyone thought the entire nation was under attack, from what my mother told me years later. I am incredibly thankful that my teacher kept a cool head and didn't panic any of us. My brother knew that day, but the sixth graders had been deemed old enough to understand.
I bounced into our green minivan at 3:15, chattering about what new multiplication facts I had learned and how maybe I would finally understand math this year. I also remember how stupid Aaron Platt had pulled my hair during recess and ugh, boys were so stupid why did God make them, when Mom shushed me and turned up the dial on the radio.
The radio was markedly different from the calm tones of the morning. It was a blurred jumble of panicky voices, shouts, and conflicting reports. Dad was already home when we got to our house. That was when I finally knew something was very, very wrong. Dad compulsively stayed late in the office, and for him to be home before five-thirty had never happened in my life.
The television was on, and I watched the Twin Towers falling.
My world fell apart too.
Mom and Dad had expressions of abject horror on their face, and it was much more than just a sad plane accident. We watched in horror as we learned of the Pentagon attack and I cried as we heard about the plane crash landing in Pennsylvania. We lived in Saint Louis. What if someone tried to steer a plane into the Arch? The zoo was awfully close to the Arch, and those poor animals didn't have anywhere to go.
My nine-year-old mind was spinning rapidly, trying to process what this meant for our world.
I remember the surge of patriotism and national unity that followed, and the weeks-long search for survivors and bodies; I remember being afraid that my young uncle would be drafted into the army for the War On Terror; the dramatic increase in flight security; and finally, the definitive division of the world into pre-9/11 and post-9/11. It was truly a historical landmark.
Over the fifteen years that have passed since, I am reminded daily of things that have changed due to that terrible day in our nation's history. I am part of the generation that still remembers the days of people coming on planes to say goodbye. We lived through 9/11 and it informs our worldview and, perhaps, many people's views on the Middle East. I remember teachers saying "not all Muslims are bad and it's wrong to be mean to those different from us", and it was hard to understand because in my nine-year-old mind, you were pretty much either bad or good. I think most kids are like that.
But on this particular 9/11 anniversary, I think it would serve us all well to remember that our Muslim brothers and sisters are not the ones who flew Flight 93 into the Twin Towers. Not every hijabi-clad woman you see on the street is automatically a member of ISIS. We must not let fear and stereotyping cloud our Gospel mandate to love one another as ourselves. It is through our actions of love and remembrance that the Lord does his work.
Those 3,000 souls who passed away on September 11, 2001, are best remembered by our kind words and loving actions. I do not think they would want us to be spiraling into hatred, fear, and rampant racism.
As you think about your own 9/11 story, consider ways how you can love louder than fear.