Fifteen years ago and the day before, I was a short 1st grader with a choppy haircut and a gap-toothed grin. My universe consisted of wherever Mom took me in Westchester County, New York, twenty miles north of Manhattan. I'd never taken a moment to consider the lives of people who lived thousands of miles across the ocean from me, on an entirely different continent. My naïve child mind had never been given a reason to think about people in cultures so categorically different from mine. What more, I could never even conceive the idea that people who lived so far away from each other and knew so little about each other could ever want to hurt each other--much less kill. Fifteen years ago and the day before, I had never heard the phrase "terror attack" before in my extremely short life, and the two towering skyscrapers that dominated the skyline I was born under only existed in my mind as two cool buildings that Daddy pointed out to me once from his office window.
That was Monday, September 10, 2001--the day before everything that came after. I phrase it like this because I believe I and everyone that else I know lived in a different world before that day. Foreign terrorism and extremists existed thousands of miles away, where it had always stayed. Travel and security were nothing like they are now. I can only barely remember what it was like to walk through an airport before the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA came to be. It was so much more relaxed, almost innocent in comparison to now.
Well, that was on Monday. The sun rose on Tuesday morning and began a bright, cool day. The weather was beautiful, almost picturesque. I remember because I spent most of that late morning on the timeout wall at school, and was desperately itching to rejoin my classmates on the playground. My teacher eventually released me from my timeout--but not before a searing machine roar filled my ears and forced me to look upward. I'd never seen such a big airplane flying so close to the ground before, and I had to wonder--why was it flying right down the Hudson River, right towards the city?
It wouldn't be long before I found out why, before I saw my mother and the other teachers with more fear in their eyes than I'd ever seen before. I remember thinking that I never wanted to see grownups look like that ever again. They were supposed to know everything and have things under control. What could it mean if grownups looked that scared? Daddy couldn't come home from work that night for some reason, too. Daddy always came home from work at night. What could have been so bad that he couldn't come home till the next day? Over the next few days, I slowly realized how absolutely blessed I was that my Dad came home from work at all. One by one, friend by friend, family by family--slowly everyone knew someone who had died that day, or who had been spared by a freak accident or miracle.
I may not have realized it at the time either, but I would spend the rest of my adolescent life in the shadow of that day. If I'm honest, that day will probably remain with me until I die. And I don't care if "Lest We Forget" is the most overused phrase associated with the horrors of September 11th--it's the most important: never forget. We can never forget and discredit the names of nearly 3,000 souls who needlessly lost their lives that day. It's the solemn duty of we who survive them. As John McCrae wrote on the tragedy of the first World War:
"To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
